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'Id  Corner  Book 

5f„,„      I.. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 


IN  FRONT  OF  BASIL  GREGORY  WAS  A  PILE  OF  GOLD. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

A  STORY  OF  MONTE  CARLO 


BY 

GUY  THORNE 

Author  of  "When  it  was  Dark,"  "  The  Drunkard," btc. 


t' 


With  Frontispiece  from  a  Drawing  by 
HOWARD  T.  GRAVES 


flew  13orft 

STURGIS  &  WALTON 

COMPANY 

1914 


Copyright,  1914 
Bt  STURGIS  &  WALTON  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  March,  1914 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

CHAPTER  I 

It  was  nine  o'clock  at  night,  and  the  thirty  huge 
dynamos  of  the  Societe  Generale  Electrique  of 
Paris  were  nearly  all  at  work.  In  the  great  glass- 
roofed  hall  of  the  Mont  Parnasse  Central  Power 
Station  blue-bloused  workmen  moved  quietly  over 
the  shining  floors  of  white  concrete,  pausing  now 
and  then  by  this  or  that  purring,  spitting  monster, 
scrutinising  the  whirring,  glittering  copper  drums, 
listening  with  experienced  ears  for  the  slightest 
variation  in  the  deep  wasp-like  hum,  touching  a 
lever  here,  adjusting  a  screw  there,  or  oiling  a 
bearing  with  tin  cans  beaked  like  a  snipe. 

Huge  arc  lamps  hanging  from  the  ceiling  cast  a 
steel-blue  radiance  over  the  hall,  a  radiance  so  cruel 
and  intense  that  the  shadows  of  the  machinery 
which  were  thrown  upon  the  floor  were  as  black 
and  sharply  defined  as  fretwork  of  ebony. 

3 


4  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

The  incandescent  lamps  which  showed  above 
each  of  the  three  great  switchboards  of  brass  and 
vulcanite,  although  they  were  burning  at  full 
power,  glowed  orange  in  the  stupendous  light 
from  above. 

The  monster  dynamos  were  making  light  for 
half  eastern  Paris.  The  Gare  Mont  Parnasse, 
from  where  trains  were  running  every  two  minutes 
with  late  business  folk  to  Meudon,  Sevres  and 
Versailles,  was  lit  from  this  room.  The  dinner 
tables  of  the  foreign  Ambassadors  on  the  Quai 
Austerlitz  were  illuminated  by  favour  of  these 
serene,  relentless  marvels,  and,  across  the  Seine, 
many  a  glittering  cafe  upon  the  heights  of  the 
pleasure  city  Montmartre  were  switching  on  hun- 
dreds of  fresh  lights  in  the  expectation  of  their 
supper  custom — even  as  a  new  dynamo  was  started 
to  cope  with  the  extra  strain. 

At  one  side  of  the  hall  a  few  concrete  steps  led 
into  the  little  glass-fronted  room  where  the  super- 
intendent engineer  on  duty  always  sat. 

The  room  was  some  twelve  feet  square,  walled 
with  white  tiles  like  a  model  dairy,  and  from  where 
he  sat  at  a  deal  table  the  engineer  could  look  out 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  5 

into  every  part  of  the  hall.  In  the  hall  itself  it 
was  cold,  though  the  electricians  felt  but  little  of  it 
owing  to  the  fresh  ozone  constantly  liberated  from 
the  dynamos  into  the  air.  Outside,  in  Paris,  it 
was  bitterly  cold — a  damp  and  foggy  cold  of  late 
November.  But  in  the  room  of  the  superintend- 
ent engineer  an  electric  stove  burned  brightly  and 
warmed  it. 

Two  people  were  in  the  room  now,  Emile  Des- 
champs  and  Basil  Gregory,  both  of  them  employed 
by  the  Societe  Generale. 

Deschamps  was  a  young  man  of  about  twenty- 
six.  His  jet  black  hair,  closely  cropped  to  a 
rather  large  and  well-shaped  head,  together  with 
the  swarthy  tint  of  his  complexion,  proclaimed 
him  of  the  South,  a  veritable  son  of  the  Midi  from 
Orange,  Avignon,  or  Marseilles.  He  wore  a  small 
black  moustache,  and  his  long-jfingered  right  hand 
was  deeply  stained  with  the  juice  of  cheap  ciga- 
rettes. 

The  man  who  sat  opposite  to  him,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  table,  was  unmistakably  English.  He 
was  smoking  a  briar  pipe,  and  though  his  clothes 
— neither  new  nor   fashionably  cut — were   dis- 


6  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

tinctly  Parisian,  his  fair  hair,  blue  eyes  and  rather 
heavy  yellow  moustache  were  eloquent  of  his  na- 
tionality. He  was  bending  over  a  large  sheet  of 
drawings  on  tracing  paper  with  strained  and  care- 
ful attention. 

He  looked  up  suddenly,  removed  the  pipe  from 
his  mouth,  and  began  speaking  in  a  torrent  of 
French  so  perfect  that  he  might  very  well  have 
passed  for  a  Parisian. 

"Emile,  I  think  I  have  it  at  last.  The  position 
of  neutrality  varies  with  the  type  of  the  machine 
owing  to  the  fact  of  armature  reaction,  which 
distorts  the  magnetic  field.  We  must  therefore 
connect  the  commutating  poles  in  series  with  the 
armature,  when  their  windings  will  carry  the  full 
armature  current." 

Deschamps  nodded,  thought  for  a  moment,  and 
a  quick  technical  discussion  began  between  the 
two  men,  the  sheet  of  drawings  being  pushed  from 
one  to  the  other,  marked  and  annotated  in  the 
margin  with  pencil. 

Suddenly  Deschamps  leant  back  in  his  chair. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "there  can  be  no  doubt  about  it. 
We're  on  the  track,  if  we  have  not  already  dis- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  7 

covered  the  most  revolutionary  theory  in  wireless 
telegraphy  that  the  world  has  known  as  yet  I 
What  we  know  now,  at  nine  o'clock  on  a  Novem- 
ber evening  in  a  power  station  in  Paris,  might 
alter  the  whole  course  of  life  and  society  all  over 
the  world." 

The  Englishman  nodded,  with  less  excited  but 
perfectly  sincere  agreement. 

"Very  well,  then,"  cried  Deschamps,  "will  the 
world  ever  benefit  by  our  three  years'  work,  our 
marvellous  discovery?  No  I  We're  two  poor 
devils,  junior  engineers  of  this  company  on  two 
hundred  and  fifty  francs  a  month.  In  all  France 
no  one  will  listen  to  us,  and  in  all  England  also, 
as  you  have  discovered.     And  why?" 

"Oh,  what  is  the  use,  Emile?"  Gregory  replied, 
cutting  short  his  friend.  "We  have  talked  it  over 
too  many  times.  It's  no  good  making  a  song 
about  it.  We  have  not  got  the  money  to  carry 
out  our  experiments  thoroughly  and  to  construct 
our  models,  twenty  thousand  pounds — five  hun- 
dred thousand  francs,  my  friend!  And  as  we 
shall  never  get  that,  no  one  will  listen  to  us  and  it 
will  remain  for  someone  else  to  make  our  dis- 


8  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

covery  when  we're — either  when  we're  dead  or 
still  nursing  Thierry  dynamos  at  a  few  francs  a 
day." 

As  he  spoke  he  rolled  up  the  sheet  of  drawings 
and,  with  a  deep  sigh,  thrust  it  into  the  inner 
pocket  of  his  coat. 

"Come  along,"  he  said;  "we  had  better  be  get- 
ting home.  It  is  more  comfortable  there  than 
here,  at  any  rate;  and  there's  still  one  bottle  of 
Magon." 

They  left  the  little  alcoved  room,  walked  slowly 
down  the  hall,  with  a  word  or  two  to  the  foreman, 
and  passed  out  into  the  ofRce,  where  the  engineer 
who  was  to  succeed  them  and  watch  through  the 
night  was  smoking  with  the  timekeeper. 

Then,  arm  in  arm,  they  passed  into  Paris. 

They  were  a  strange  couple,  these  two.  Basil 
Gregory  was  the  son  of  a  Cambridge  tutor,  who 
early  in  his  career  had  gone  to  Paris  as  the  Eng- 
lish master  of  a  famous  Lycee.  He  had  married 
a  Frenchwoman,  who  had  died  five  years  after 
Basil's  birth.  The  boy  had  been  brought  up  in 
Paris  until  he  was  old  enough  to  go  to  one  of  the 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  9 

lesser  public  schools  of  England,  which  was  all 
his  father  could  afford  for  him.  He  won  a  science 
scholarship  from  his  school  to  Cambridge,  had 
worked  hard  and  played  hard  at  the  University, 
until  an  unfortunate  encounter  with  a  proctor  dur- 
ing one  of  the  evenings  of  the  "May  Week"  had 
caused  him  to  be  sent  down  for  ever  and  a  day. 
It  was  a  stupid  affair  enough,  but  the  hot-headed 
young  man's  treatment  of  the  guardian  of  Uni- 
versity morals  had  been  too  flagrant  to  be  passed 
over. 

Basil  had  returned  to  Paris,  spent  six  months  as 
a  pupil  in  the  school  for  electrical  engineers,  and 
had  finally  been  apprenticed  to  the  Societe  Gen- 
erale.  At  the  end  of  his  apprenticeship  his  father 
had  died,  leaving  him  his  blessing  and  a  couple  of 
hundred  pounds.  From  that  time  to  this,  and  he 
was  now  exactly  the  same  age  as  his  friend 
Deschamps,  the  young  man  had  worked  as  a 
junior  engineer  at  the  central  power  station.  His 
salary  was  ten  pounds  a  month.  There  were  in- 
numerable people  before  him,  and  his  prospects 
seemed  absolutely  nil. 


lo  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

As  for  Deschamps,  he  was  the  son  of  a  bank- 
rupt wine  merchant  of  Marseilles.  With  a  re- 
markable taste  for  science  and  an  especial  interest 
in  electricity,  he  had  come  to  Paris — after  an  ap- 
prenticeship at  the  electrical  station  of  Monte 
Carlo — and  was  in  precisely  the  same  state  as 
Basil  Gregory.  The  two  young  men  had  be- 
come friends  at  once.  Each  recognised  in  the 
other  a  brain  above  the  average.  Both  of  them 
were  intensely  interested  in  their  work,  both  of 
them  had  the  temper  of  mind  which  flouts  ac- 
cepted theories  and  ever  presses  forward  to  new 
and  epoch-making  discovery.  They  were  pi- 
oneers, and  knew  it.  Without  conceit,  without 
any  self-deception,  they  were  quietly  certain  of 
their  own  powers.  They  had  worked  together, 
spending  every  moment  of  their  spare  time  and 
every  franc  they  could  afford  upon  a  new  and 
original  development  in  wireless  telegraphy. 
They  had  arrived  at  a  point  when  they  were  both 
convinced  that  they  had  wrested  an  entirely  new 
secret  from  Nature,  and  at  this  point  they  found, 
as  so  many  inventors  and  pioneers  have  found  in 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  ii 

the  past,  that  the  way  was  absolutely  barred  for 
want  of  capital.  In  their  hands  they  were  sure 
they  held  the  talisman  of  fortune  and  undying 
renown.  It  was  useless  to  them  for  want  of 
money. 

This  night  in  Paris  was  bitter  cold.  Moreover, 
an  infrequent  and  dreaded  occurrence  in  Paris,  a 
dense  fog  lay  over  the  city.  These  Parisian  fogs 
are  not  the  sulphurous,  pea-soup  discomforts  of 
London,  but  they  are  almost  as  unpleasant,  and 
quite  as  upsetting  to  ordinary  life  and  comfort. 
A  dank,  grey  mist,  opaque  and  wet,  seems  to  rise 
from  the  Seine,  spread  outwards  in  evergrowing 
density  and  chill,  until  all  the  central  quarter  of 
Paris  is  hidden  and  throttled  by  it. 

''DiableP'  Deschamps  said,  coughing,  as  they 
left  the  power  station  behind  them.  "  line  vraie 
brume  Anglazsey 

Gregory  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "It  is  pretty 
bad,"  he  said,  "and  we  can't  see  a  yard  in  front  of 
our  noses.  Still,  if  you  had  experienced  a  London 
'particular,'  Emile — well,  then  you  would  know !" 

There  was  a  silence  between  the  young  men  as 


12  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

they  tramped  away  to  the  Latin  Quarter,  where 
they  shared  a  room  in  a  little  fifth-rate  hotel  not 
far  from  the  Quai  Voltaire.  The  night  was  bit- 
terly cold,  certainly  not  inviting  conversation,  and 
the  thoughts  of  the  pair  were  cold  and  bitter  in 
harmony  with  the  night.  Genius  is  rarely  un- 
conscious of  its  power.  Basil  Gregory  and  Emile 
Deschamps  were  not  in  the  least  conceited,  but 
each  knew  in  his  heart  of  hearts  that  already  they 
approached  those  heights  upon  which  Tesla  and 
Edison  dwelt.  They  saw  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain bathed  in  glorious  sunshine,  but  between 
them  and  it  there  was  a  great  gulf  only  to  be 
bridged  by  money. 

Basil  Gregory's  case  was,  perhaps,  the  worse  of 
the  two,  for  Basil  was  in  love.  Ethel  McMahon, 
the  pretty  Irish  girl,  who  was  English  mistress  in 
a  young  ladies'  school  in  the  Fauberg  St.  Honore, 
held  all  his  heart,  but  she,  like  him,  was  poor  and 
friendless,  and  out  of  her  wretched  salary  sup- 
ported an  invalid  mother,  who  was  a  martyr  to 
one  of  the  cruellest  forms  of  arthritis. 

The  young  man  ground  his  teeth  in  fury  against 
Fate,  as  he  strode  by  his  companion's  side.     Sud- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  13 

denly  he  began  to  talk  rapidly,  and  with  a  true 
Parisian  vehemence. 

"I  shouldn't  mind  so  much,  Emile,  if  we  wanted 
money  for  the  reason  that  such  a  lot  of  fellows  of 
our  age  want  it.  But  we  don't.  We  don't  want 
to  play  the  giddy  goat" — faire  la  bete  was  the 
French  he  used — "we  don't  want  to  enjoy  our- 
selves in  the  usual  silly  way.  We  only  want  the 
world  to  recognise  us  for  what  we  are.  We  want 
to  benefit  the  whole  world,  Emile,  and  for  our- 
selves all  we  ask  is  recognition  and  sufficient  to 
live  in  comfort." 

"It's  true,"  Deschamps  replied.  "For  mj^self, 
a  flat  in  central  Paris,  a  motor  car  to  take  me 
quickly  to  my  experimental  works,  money  to 
travel  to  America  to  see  all  the  developments  of 
electricity  there — that  is  all  I  ask." 

"It's  much  the  same  with  me,"  the  other  re- 
turned, "except  that  I  want  to  get  married  as  well 
and  give  poor  dear  Ethel  a  happy  life,  and  her 
mother  the  comforts  that  she  needs.  And  yet — 
oh,  I'd  give  anything,  anything,  to  get  the  money 
for  our  experiments." 

Deschamps  shrugged  his  shoulders.     "Well,  we 


14  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

cannot  rob  a  church,"  he  said,  "and  the  penalties 
for  any  sort  of  burglary  are  most  unpleasant  in 
France.  We  must  even  wait  upon  Fortune. 
After  all,  mon  ami,  our  chance  may  yet  come. 
Every  day  we  read  in  the  newspapers  of  strange 
strokes  of  fortune  coming  to  people.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  we  shall  never  have  our  opportunity. 
Who  knows !" — he  threw  out  an  arm  with  one  of 
the  theatrical  gestures  habitual  to  men  of  the 
South — "who  knows  but  that  this  very  night  some 
very  great  thing  will  happen  to  us !  Faith !  faith ! 
We  must  believe,  and  Fortune  will  be  kind  to  us. 
She  ever  turns  away  coldly  from  a  faint  and  de- 
spairing heart  I" 

He  took  his  fancy  and  embroidered  it  in  a 
stream  of  words  so  vivid,  hopeful  and  full 
of  fancy  that  he  half  persuaded  the  more  phleg- 
matic Englishman  by  his  side.  Basil  listened  in 
silence,  warmed  a  little,  and  was  not  quite  so 
hopeless  as  he  had  been.  Then,  out  of  mere 
shame  at  his  own  feeling,  he  stemmed  the  other's 
torrent  of  words. 

"That  is  all  very  well,"  he  said  grimly,  "but 
meanwhile  Dame  Fortune  seems  to  have  deserted 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  15 

us  worse  than  ever.  While  we  have  been  talking 
nonsense  we  have  missed  our  way,  and  if  you  can 
tell  me  where  we  are,  or  whereabouts  the  Hotel 
Buonaparte  may  be  lying,  I  shall  be  extremely 
obliged  to  you.  Monsieur  Deschamps  of  the  rosy 
hopes !" 

The  two  men  stopped.  It  was  as  Gregory  had 
said.  That  they  were  near  the  Seine  was  obvious, 
because  of  the  intenser  thickness  of  the  fog,  but 
there  was  no  doubt  that  they  had  entirely  lost 
their  direction.  The  white  mist  was  as  thick  as 
wool,  wet,  motionless,  and  icy.  Where  they 
stood,  upon  the  pavement,  and  half-way  down  a 
mean,  narrow  street,  the  blurred  contours  of  which 
were  perfectly  unfamiliar,  hardly  a  sound  could 
be  heard.  Wheel  traffic  there  was  none.  The 
hum  of  fog-gripped  Paris  came  to  them  as  if  from 
an  incredible  distance;  there  was  not  even  a  foot- 
step to  be  heard. 

Once  more  Deschamps  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
"Bien,''  he  said;  "yes,  we  have  certainly  'done  it 
this  time,'  as  you  say.  I  have  no  notion  where 
we  are.  I  am  as  cold  as  an  iceberg  and  as  hungry 
as  a  goat." 


i6  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

They  stood  looking  at  each  other,  though  the 
face  of  each  was  an  indistinct,  pale  glimmer. 
They  had  gone  a  little  too  much  to  the  west,  and 
had  lost  themselves  in  the  narrow  network  of 
mean  streets  somewhere  behind  the  Ecole  Mili- 
taire.  To  reach  the  Latin  Quarter  would  need 
considerable  ingenuity  upon  a  clear  evening  when 
the  lamps  shone  brightly.  At  the  moment  it 
seemed  a  sheer  impossibility. 

"Shall  we  turn  back^"  Deschamps  asked. 

Gregory  shook  his  head.  "No,"  he  replied. 
"You  pretend  to  be  so  intimate  with  the  habits 
of  Fortune,  and  yet  you  ask  a  question  like  that ! 
Let  us  go  on.  We  are  bound  to  find  our  way 
somehow  into  some  street  where  there  is  more  life 
and  movement.  And  if  we  meet  a  gang  of 
Apaches — well,  we  are  neither  of  us  weaklings, 
and  we  have  got  a  couple  of  good  walking-sticks. 
Forward,  Emile  Deschamps !  We  go  to  seek  our 
fortune !"  And  as  he  said  it  he  laughed  with  bit- 
ter cynicism. 

They  went  on,  but  as  they  did  so,  and  when  they 
had  walked  a  hundred  and  fifty  yards  or  more,  the 
street  in  which  they  were  grew  even  narrower  and 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  17 

more  silent.  Every  now  and  then,  at  long  dis- 
tances, there  was  a  gas  lamp,  but  its  yellow  light 
was  so  muffled  by  the  fog  that  it  hardly  pene- 
trated for  more  than  a  yard  or  so,  and  if  the  pris- 
matic colours  the  light  made  upon  the  mist  were 
beautiful,  they  were  quite  useless  to  two  young 
gentlemen  hungry  for  supper  and  far  from 
home. 

Emile  Deschamps  took  a  box  of  matches  from 
his  pocket,  wax  ones,  which  burned  immediately 
without  the  spectral  blue  flame  of  the  more  gen- 
eral Government  article.  He  lit  one — there  was 
not  a  breath  of  wind — and  held  it  above  his  head. 
The  two  men  walked  onwards  for  a  few  yards 
while  the  feeble  light  lasted,  carefully  scrutinising 
the  tall  houses  which  abutted  on  the  pavement. 
They  seemed  to  consist  of  small  workshops  and 
factories,  now  blind  and  deserted.  Another 
match  brought  them  to  a  stretch  of  wide  wood  pal- 
ing, beyond  which  rose  dim  objects  seeming  like 
giant  mounds  or  pyramids,  and  even  as  the  match 
flickered  out  it  threw  its  light  upon  a  painted 
sign. 

"Ah!"    Deschamps   said   suddenly.     "Now   I 


i8  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

know  I  We  are  in  the  wood  quarter!  This  is  a 
street  of  chantiers  de  boisJ' 

Basil  groaned.  "Good  heavens!"  he  said, 
"then  we  have  come  out  of  our  way,"  for  he  knew 
instantly  that  they  had  penetrated  to  that  part  of 
Paris  where  the  huge  wood-sheds  were,  where  the 
firewood  is  cut  and  stored,  and  timber  for  all  other 
purposes  is  kept.  All  around  them  were  the  great 
wood  stacks  and  deserted  yards.  There  was  not 
a  sound  to  be  heard,  and  doubtless  the  few  watch- 
men that  were  on  guard  were  comfortably  sleep- 
ing over  the  stoves  in  their  huts. 

"Go  on,  or  turn  back*?"  Deschamps  said. 

Gregory  took  a  franc  from  his  pocket,  and  spun 
it  under  a  gas  lamp  to  which  they  had  just  come 
up.  "Heads  we  go  on,"  he  said,  and  as  the  coin 
fell  upon  the  back  of  his  hand,  sure  enough  the 
figure  of  Liberty  was  uppermost. 

"That  settles  it,"  he  said,  and  once  again  the 
boots  of  the  friends  rang  upon  the  pavement. 

They  had  travelled  for  some  fifty  yards  or  so, 
when  a  rather  brighter  light  than  usual  came  into 
their  view. 

"By  Jove!"  Gregory  said,  "an  electric  light  at 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  19 

last!  I  know  current  is  supplied  to  this  neigh- 
bourhood because  there  have  recently  been  repre- 
sentations in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  as  to  the 
necessity  for  supplying  current  to  all  this  part 
owing  to  the  inflammable  nature  of  the  wood. 
The  Societe  is  interested  in  the  matter.  I  saw 
some  correspondence  about  it  in  the  office,  but  the 
people  in  this  part  are  very  conservative  and  none 
too  well  off,  either.     Let  us  have  a  look." 

They  came  up  to  the  light.  It  was  not  a  street 
lamp,  but  projected  from  above  the  door  of  an  old 
and  rather  shabby  building,  and  immediately  be- 
neath it  was  a  trade  sign  which  could  easily  be 
read  in  the  stronger  illumination.  This  was  the 
sign: 

CARNET  FRERES, 

Graveurs  sur  bois  Boisage. 

"Well,  here's  something,"  Gregory  said,  "and 
by  the  fact  that  the  light  is  still  on,  one  may  sup- 
pose that  there  is  someone  inside.  It  is  a  wood- 
engraver's  and  wood-turner's  workshop,  you  see. 
Yes,  the  door's  actually  open !  We  will  go  in  and 
inquire  where  we  are." 


20  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

As  he  spoke  he  pushed  open  a  swing  door  of 
wood,  from  which  the  paint  was  peeling,  and,  fol- 
lowed by  Deschamps,  entered  without  further 
ado. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  two  young  men  were  conscious  of  a  pleasant 
sensation  of  warmth  as  the  door  swung  to  behind 
them. 

They  found  themselves  in  a  narrow  passage,  and 
immediately  to  their  left  was  a  glass  window  like 
the  window  of  a  conciergerie,  one  panel  of  which 
was  open  and  looked  into  a  dingy  office  lit  by  a 
single  gas  jet.  There  was  nothing  in  the  office  but 
a  safe,  a  desk  round  the  wall,  and  some  high  stools, 
while  a  cheap  French  clock  ticked  from  a  bracket 
upon  the  wall. 

"At  any  rate,  whoever  they  are,  they  have  not 

gone,"  said  Deschamps  with  satisfaction.     "Now 

we  shall  be  all  right,"  and  as  he  said  it  he  rapped 

loudly  with  his  knuckles  upon  the  little  counter  in 

front  of  the  glass  partition.     They  waited  for 

nearly  half  a  minute,  but  there  was  no  response. 

Finally  Gregory  took  his  walking  stick  and  beat  a 

tattoo  upon  the  counter.     The  sound  of  his  knock- 

ai 


22  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

ing  had  hardly  died  away  when  footsteps  were 
heard  in  the  distance.  They  grew  nearer,  and  a 
door  leading  into  the  office  behind  the  partition 
was  pushed  open,  and  a  strange  and  rather 
startling  figure  entered. 

This  was  a  little  man  not  more  than  four  feet 
high,  wearing  a  round  black  cap  of  alpaca,  a 
green  baize  apron,  and  a  huge  circular  pair  of 
spectacles.  His  face  was  brown  and  shrivelled. 
A  fine  network  of  wrinkles  was  all  over  it,  and  be- 
neath the  alpaca  cap  were  straggling  locks  of 
dingy  white.  The  nose  which  supported  the  pair 
of  grotesque  horn  spectacles  was  large  and  bird- 
like, the  mouth  below  was  innocent  and  kindly. 

The  little  man,  in  short,  looked  exactly  like 
the  traditional  toy  or  clock  maker  of  Nuremberg 
in  a  comic  opera,  stepping  clean  off  the  stage  to 
greet  the  new-comers. 

He  looked  up  at  them  with  a  courteous  but  in- 
quiring glance  as  he  turned  up  the  gas  jet 
and  they  saw  him  more  clearly.  Then,  placing 
two  soiled  and  wrinkled,  but  delicate  and  capable, 
hands  upon  the  counter,  he  made  an  odd  bow. 

"Messieurs*?"  he  said,  in  a  thin,  piping  voice. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  23 

Deschamps  raised  his  hat.  "I  am  sorry  to  say- 
that  my  friend  and  I  have  lost  our  way,"  he  be- 
gan. "The  fog  is  very  thick  to-night,  and  it  is 
growing  thicker  and  thicker.  We  have  come 
quite  out  of  our  route,  and  do  not  know  where 
we  are.  We  are  trying  to  get  to  the  Latin  Quar- 
ter, where  we  live." 

The  little  man  raised  his  hands,  and  as  he  did 
so,  both  young  men  noticed  how  prehensile  and 
delicate  they  were — the  hands  of  a  master  work- 
man. 

"Mon  DieuJ"  he  said,  "but  you  are  very  far 
out  of  your  way,  indeed,  gentlemen.  This  is  the 
Rue  Petite  Louise.  It  is  not  a  thoroughfare  at 
all.  It  is  only  a  cul-de-sac,  which  winds  among 
the  wood-yards.  Between  here  and  the  Latin 
Quarter  the  district  is  very  congested,  and  you 
might  walk  about  all  night  in  a  fog  like  this  un- 
less you  could  find  a  taxi-cab." 

"I  am  afraid  there  won't  be  any  cabs  abroad 
to-night  in  this  part  of  Paris,"  Gregory  broke  in. 
"Well,  we  must  just  take  our  chance.  I  thank 
you  very  much,  monsieur." 

"But  it  is  impossible!"  the  odd  little  creature 


24  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

said  with  a  tiny  shriek.  "The  hour  is  already 
late,  gentlemen;  the  fog,  as  you  say,  grows 
thicker  every  moment.  And,  look  you,  on  a  night 
like  this  there  will  be  all  sorts  of  robbers  abroad. 
It  is  most  unsafe." 

Deschamps  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Doubt- 
less," he  said,  "but  there  is  nothing  else  for  it." 

The  little  man  on  the  other  side  of  the  counter 
peered  at  them  anxiously  through  his  great  round 
spectacles.  "But,  yes,"  he  said,  in  a  plaintive 
bleat,  "if  affairs  call  you  home,  monsieur — doubt- 
less madame  will  be  distressed — then,  indeed  you 
must  go,  but " 

Deschamps  laughed.  "No,  we  have  no  busi- 
ness; we  have  finished  our  work  for  the  day,  and 
we  are  not  married;  still " 

"The  matter  is  settled,"  said  the  old  gentle- 
man, with  a  child-like  smile.  "You  will  do  me 
the  honour  of  coming  into  our  workshop  im- 
mediately. We  have  a  fire  there,  soup,  bread, 
and  vin  ordinaire  are  ready,  and  there  is  enough 
for  all.  My  brother  will  be  as  pleased  as  I  am 
to  have  the  honour  of  offering  you  hospitality  on 
such  a  night.     No" — ^he  waved  his  hands  in  reply 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  25 

to  a  murmur  of  protest  from  Deschamps — "we 
could  not  let  you  go.  Stay  with  us  until  the 
morning,  and  we  will  do  our  best  to  make  you 
comfortable  as  may  be." 

Eager,  chirping  and  twittering  like  an  excited 
bird,  the  odd,  old  fellow  unlatched  a  half-door, 
pushed  up  the  counter-flap  and  bowed  them  into 
the  little  office.  In  a  moment  they  had  passed 
through  it  into  a  long,  narrow  room  with  a  high 
roof  which  seemed  to  be  of  glass. 

The  place  was  lit  by  a  huge  fire  of  coal  and 
wood,  which  glowed  in  an  open  hearth,  and  by 
the  side  of  it  was  a  small  forge.  The  red  light 
streamed  out  in  a  mysterious  radiance  upon  a 
workshop  crowded  with  tools,  long  tables,  stacks 
of  rare  and  polished  woods,  and  here  and  there 
an  unfamiliar  machine. 

The  only  other  light  came  from  two  candles 
stuck  upon  a  bench  in  their  own  grease,  and  the 
whole  effect  was  startlingly  curious  and  unex- 
pected. It  was  as  picturesque  as  some  carefully 
set  scene  upon  the  stage,  and  seem.ed  utterly  re- 
moved from  the  modern  life  of  a  great  city.  The 
red  light  of  the  fire  left  distant  comers  of  the 


26  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

workshop  in  black,  impenetrable  shadow,  making 
it  seem  of  vast  extent. 

Around  the  fire,  however,  the  half-circle  of  light 
it  threw  out  showed  everything  with  great  dis- 
tinctness. 

Gregory  and  Deschamps  looked  round  them 
with  bewildered  eyes,  and  then,  simultaneously, 
they  gasped. 

Rising  from  an  old  oak  chair,  emerging  from 
its  depths  rather,  there  came  another  little  man 
towards  them. 

In  every  particular  he  was  exactly  like  their 
guide.  In  that  bizarre  light,  at  any  rate,  hardly 
anyone  could  have  told  them  apart,  and  as  he 
stepped  forward  he  peered  at  them  through  iden- 
tical round  spectacles. 

"My  brother,  Edouard,"  said  the  old  man  who 
had  welcomed  them.  "Edouard,  these  gentlemen 
have  lost  their  way  in  the  fog.  They  are  very 
far  from  their  home,  and  it  would  be  dangerous 
for  them  to  seek  it  to-night  without  a  proper 
guide.  I  have  accordingly  asked  them  to  come  in, 
and  begged  of  them  to  share  our  simple  supper, 
and  to  wait  till  the  fog  goes." 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  27 

"But  I  am  enchanted  I"  said  the  second  little 
man,  settling  his  round  alpaca  cap  upon  his  head 
and  waving  his  right  arm  in  an  expressive  pan- 
tomime of  welcome.  "But  this  is  most  fortunate, 
gentlemen.  Supper  is  nearly  ready;  come  to  the 
fire.  Charles  and  myself  are  delighted  to  be  of 
service." 

The  sudden  transition  from  bitter  cold  and  the 
grey  blanket  of  the  fog  to  this  extraordinary  place 
bewildered  both  the  engineers.  It  was  almost  as 
if  they  moved  among  the  scenes  of  some  fantastic 
dream,  as  they  sat  down  upon  a  bench  by  the 
fire,  removed  their  damp  hats  and  overcoats,  and 
locked  around  them. 

Was  this  really  modern  Paris'?  Who  were 
these  two  kindly,  dwarf -like  creatures  who  had 
welcomed  them  into  this  warm,  secret  place, 
which  seemed  like  a  cavern  of  the  gnomes'? 

Suddenly  Basil  Gregor}^  became  conscious  that 
"my  brother  Charles"  was  standing  before  him 
and  speaking. 

"We  are  the  Carnet  Freres,"  he  was  saying, 
"and.  twin  brethren  also  I  I  noticed,  monsieur, 
you  were  startled  as  Edouard  came  to  greet  you. 


28  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

And,  naturellement^  this  old  workshop  of  ours  is 
something  out  of  the  ordinary  way.  But  we  have 
lived  and  worked  here  for  twenty  years,  my 
brother  and  I — we  have  a  sleeping-room  at  the 
back — and  what  we  do  for  our  living  is  a  small 
and  specialised  branch  of  the  wood- worker's  trade, 
and  we  have  the  monopoly  of  it." 

Basil  bowed.  "My  comrade,  Monsieur  Emile 
Deschamps,"  he  said.  "I,  myself  am  an  English- 
man, and  my  name  is  Gregory." 

The  hands  of  Brother  Charles  flickered  in  front 
of  him.  "But  it  is  wonderful  I"  he  said  with  the 
pleased  surprise  of  a  child  with  a  new  toy.  "You 
are  English  to  look  at,  monsieur.  There  is  noth- 
ing of  the  Latin  about  you:  and  yet  you  speak 
French  as  well  as  I  do." 

"I  have  lived  nearly  all  my  life  in  Paris,"  Basil 
answered  with  a  smile. 

"That  accounts  for  it,"  the  other  twittered. 
"And  now  I  see  Brother  Edouard  is  preparing  the 
meal.  Mon  Dieu,  Edouard,  how  hungry  these 
poor  gentlemen  must  be  I" 

An  iron  pot  was  hooked  over  the  fire — a  steam- 
ing pot,  a  pot  of  fragrant  promise.     From  it  into 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  29 

stout  china  bowls  Brother  Edouard  was  ladleing 
thick  brown  soup. 

Brother  Charles  wheeled  round  to  the  long 
work-bench  and  began  to  cut  thick  slices  of  bread, 
to  rattle  spoons,  parade  a  somewhat  dingy  cruet, 
set  flat-footed  glasses  by  each  bowl,  and  uncork 
two  bottles  of  vin  ordinaire. 

Overflowing  with  hospitality  and  the  most 
charming  child-like  excitement,  the  odd,  bird-like 
hosts  served  the  soup  and  poured  out  that  cheap 
table-wine  of  Paris,  which  is  exactly  the  colour 
of  permanganate  of  potash  and  water. 

Basil  and  Emile  sat  down  without  further  ado, 
and  for  five  minutes  there  was  a  happy  silence. 
The  pot-au-feu  was  rich  and  nourishing.  The 
wine  was  exactly  that  to  which  the  friends  them- 
selves were  accustomed.  The  fog  and  the  cold 
in  the  ridiculous,  inhospitable  outside  world  was 
quite  forgotten,  and  it  seemed  as  if  some  malig- 
nant fog-curtain  in  their  own  brains  had  now 
rolled  up  and  disappeared. 

The  faces  of  the  two  young  men  lost  their 
pinched  and  discontented  look.  Anxiety  faded 
from  their  eyes,  and  as  they  passed  their  cigarette 


30  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

cases  to  their  hosts,  and  four  thin  blue  spirals  of 
smoke  rose  out  of  the  red  light  to  be  lost  in 
the  shadows  of  the  roof,  Basil  Gregory  and  Emile 
Deschamps  had  lost  all  thought  of  care. 

It  seemed  quite  natural,  perfectly  in  the  order 
of  things,  to  be  sitting  there  with  their  fantastic 
and  courteous  entertainers  in  a  strange,  mediaeval 
setting — two  starving  wayfarers  upon  a  hillside, 
taken  in  to  the  cave  of  the  kindly  gnomes,  or  the 
workshop  of  beneficent  magicians. 

"Your  cigarettes  are  of  the  best  tobacco,  mon- 
sieur," said  Charles  Camet.  ''Au  hon  fumeur! 
My  brother  and  I  had  expected  to  spend  a  lonely 
evening.  Here's  to  the  fortunate  chance  that 
brought  us  guests!" 

He  tossed  off  a  thimbleful  of  the  purple  wine 
with  a  flourish. 

"But  I  could  wish,  gentlemen,"  said  his  brother, 
"that  we  could  have  entertained  you  better,  I 
am  afraid  we  are  old-fashioned  in  our  ways,  and 
prefer  a  simple  menage.  At  any  rate,  there  might 
have  been  more  light  upon  the  scene.  The  fire 
is  all  very  well,  but  these  two  candles  give  hardly 
any  illumination.     As  a  rule,  our  workshop  is  lit 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  31 

with  electric  light,  and  we  also  use  the  current  for 
our  lathe.  An  hour  ago,  however,  there  was  a 
'fizz'  and  a  'spit'  from  that  porcelain  box  there 
in  the  casing  of  the  electric  wires,  and,  behold! 
the  light  went  and  the  lathe  will  not  work.  It 
has  happened  before,  and  we  must  now  wait  till 
to-morrow  for  the  electrician  to  come  from  the 
works  and  put  it  right  for  us." 

Basil  Gregory  laughed.  "Fate  hath  many  sur- 
prises, Monsieur  Camet,"  he  said,  "and  surely 
we  have  been  specially  sent  to  your  assistance  to- 
night! My  friend  and  I  are  both  electrical 
engineers  attached  to  the  superintending  station  of 
the  Societe  Generale  at  Mont  Parnasse.  I  expect 
I  know  what  has  happened.  And  I  shall  be  very 
m.uch  mistaken  if  I  cannot  put  it  right  for  you  in 
two  or  three  minutes." 

The  little  gentlemen  were  on  their  feet 
in  a  second,  chirping  and  twittering  with  pleas- 
ure. 

"Tiens!  Edouard,"  said  Brother  Charles,  "we 
have  been  entertaining  angels  unawares!" 

"You  are  right,  Charles,"  said  Brother 
Edouard.     "Angels  of  light." 


32  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Gregory  and  Deschamps  went  to  the  opposite 
wall  of  the  workshop,  moving  cautiously  among 
the  benches,  litter  of  wood-blocks  and  tools. 
Deschamps  held  one  of  the  candles  while  Gregory 
deftly  unscrewed  the  round  porcelain  cap  of  the 
cut-out.  It  was  as  he  suspected,  and  he  pulled 
out  the  semi-circular  china  bridge  from  its  brass 
clips  and  showed  it  to  his  hosts. 

"It  is  quite  simple,"  he  said.  "Between  this 
brass  screw  and  this,  there  is  always  a  soft  wire 
made  of  tin  and  lead — fusible  metal,  we  call  it. 
All  the  current  which  lights  your  lamps  and  runs 
your  lathes  passes  through  the  insulated  copper 
wires,  but  it  has  to  pass  tlirough  the  little  lead 
wire  as  well.  From  some  reason  or  other  the 
current  gets  too  strong  and  might  heat  the  wires 
and  create  a  fire;  the  little  lead  wire  strung  on 
this  half-circle  melts  with  the  heat,  and  the  cur- 
rent is  shut  off.  That  was  the  spitting  noise  you 
heard." 

He  plunged  his  hand  into  a  side  pocket  and 
withdrew  a  small  coil  of  fuse  wire,  which  every 
practical  engineer  carries,  and  a  screwdriver.  In 
half  a  minute  he  had  fixed  three  inches  of  the  soft 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  33 

lead  wire  into  the  bridge,  and  snapped  the  bridge 
into  its  place  in  the  box. 

There  was  a  click  as  the  blocks  came  home,  and 
then,  in  an  instant,  the  long  workshop  was 
flooded  with  white  light,  while  at  the  far  end  of 
it  the  motor,  and  the  lathe  it  drove,  began  to 
hum  and  clatter  with  a  sudden,  disconcerting 
noise. 

Edouard  Carnet  ran  to  the  lathe  and  pulled 
down  the  tumbler  switch.  The  noise  stopped, 
but  the  brilliant  illumination  remained,  and  en- 
tirely changed  the  aspect  of  the  room. 

The  great  fire  glowed  a  dull  red  now.  The 
shadows  shrivelled  up  into  the  corners  and  dis- 
appeared. Every  object  in  the  workshop  was 
distinct  and  well-defined. 

"A  thousand  thanks,  monsieur,"  said  the  little 
men.  "Another  glass  of  wine !  We  will  go  back 
to  the  fireside  and  drink  in  light  and  comfort." 

The  four  of  them  found  their  way  back  to  their 
seats,  and  began  to  talk  again.  The  eyes  of  the 
newcomers,  however,  were  straying  round  the 
workshop  with  a  curiosity  they  could  hardly  dis- 
guise.    The  place  had  been  mysterious  before,  and 


34  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

strangely  picturesque  in  the  half  light.  It  was 
mysterious  no  longer,  but  a  picturesqueness  lin- 
gered still,  while  there  was  much  that  neither  of 
them  were  able  to  understand. 

Suddenly  Deschamps  gave  an  exclamation. 
His  eye  had  fallen  upon  something  which  in- 
terested and  excited  him,  something  which  called 
up  golden  visions. 

''TiensP'  he  cried,  jumping  up  from  his  seat, 
and  going  over  to  the  adjacent  table.  "And  what 
have  we  here?" 

Upon  the  table  was  a  circular  basin — rather 
larger  than  an  ordinary  washing  basin — ^beauti- 
fully made  of  polished  black  ebony,  and  with  a 
rim  that  curved  over  upon  the  inside.  Upon  the 
inward  curve  of  the  basin,  at  regular  distances, 
were  diamond-shaped  bosses  of  bright  metal, 
while  the  whole  of  the  bottom  of  the  instrument 
consisted  of  a  series  of  tin  compartments  painted 
black  and  red  alternately,  each  compartment  hav- 
ing a  number  painted  upon  it  in  white.  These 
compartments  were  fixed  to  a  moving  disc,  which 
could  be  rapidly  rotated  by  means  of  a  silver  up- 
right terminating  in  a  sort  of  capstan,  and  rising 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  35 

above  the  sides  of  the  bowl  in  the  exact  centre. 

Emile  Deschamps  knew  very  well  what  this 
was.  He  was  of  the  South.  He  had  been  bom 
near  that  fairy  city  on  the  Mediterranean  where 
the  Goddess  of  Chance  rules  supreme. 

"Then  you  make  roulette  wheels'?"  he  cried, 
turning  excitedly  to  the  two  little  men.  "But 
this  one  is  superb !  It  is  larger  than  you  can  buy 
in  the  shops.  It  is  full  size  indeed — exactly  as 
they  are  used  at  Monte  Carlo  I" 

With  fingers  that  actually  trembled,  the  young 
man  twirled  the  silver  capstan,  and  immediately 
the  painted  slots  in  the  bowl  became  merged  in  a 
trembling  blur  of  colour,  as  the  disc  revolved 
noiselessly,  but  at  great  speed. 

"It  is  perfect  I"  Emile  went  on,  with  a  chuckle 
of  excitement  and  delight.  "It  runs  as  sweetly 
and  truly  as  those  in  the  Casino  itself!  Basil, 
look  here  I  See  how  delicate  and  beautiful  this 
work  is  I" 

The  brothers  Carnet  had  risen  to  their  feet  also, 
and  were  standing  side  by  side.  Their  bird-like 
faces  were  wreathed  with  gratified  smiles.  They 
bowed  together  like  a  grotesque  toy. 


36  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

"Messieurs,"  said  Brother  Edouard,  "we  thank 
you  for  what  you  have  said.  The  wheel  is,  in- 
deed, as  you  say,  a  masterpiece!  But  it  would 
be  odd  if  it  were  not  so,  for,  for  twenty  years  my 
brother  and  myself  have  done  nothing  else  than 
make  just  these  wheels.  Every  single  piece  of  it 
is  our  handiwork.  We  forge  the  nickel  for  the 
pivot  and  capstan,  and  we  silver-plate  it  ourselves. 
We  select  the  wood,  we  turn  it — no  other  hands 
but  ours  touch  the  wheels.  Brother  Charles  here 
even  turns  the  ivory  balls."  He  stepped  up  to 
the  table,  pulled  out  a  long  drawer,  and  lifted 
from  it  a  walnut  box  lined  with  green  baize,  in 
which  were  a  dozen  small  balls  of  ivory,  the  size 
of  a  large  marble. 

"See!"  he  cried;  "these  also!" 

Basil  had  been  examining  the  delicate  and 
beautifully  made  machine  with  great  interest 
while  the  Camets  had  been  speaking.  He  also 
had  an  eye  for  perfect  workmanship,  and  it  needed 
not  the  excited  enthusiasm  of  his  friend  for  him 
to  realise  that  he  saw  it  here. 

At  the  same  time,  he  could  not  quite  under- 
stand the  sort  of  fever  into  which  the  sight  of 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  37 

the  roulette  wheel  had  thrown  Deschamps.  It 
seemed  exaggerated  to  the  Englishman.  Here 
was  good  workmanship,  it  was  true.  But  why 
this  torrent  of  excited  words  ^ 

"For  twenty  years  I"  Deschamps  cried. 
"Then;  indeed,  monsieur,  that  explains  it!  But 
surely  it  cannot  pay  you  to  devote  your  life  to 
this  work,  though  it  is  certainly  the  finest  I  have 
ever  seen,  and  far  superior  to  anything  one  can 
buy  in  the  shops  I" 

The  two  brothers  chuckled;  and  then  Charles 
took  up  the  tale. 

"Our  wheels  are  not  for  sale,"  he  said.  "I 
must  let  you  into  a  little  secret,  which,  as  our 
guests  and  men  of  honour,  you  will  preserve.  My 
brother  and  I  make  all  the  roulette  wheels  for 
the  Casino  at  Monte  Carlo.  We  have  been  em- 
ployed by  the  Administration  for  many,  many 
years.  As  you  may  well  conceive,  it  is  important 
that  these  machines  should  be  perfect  in  every 
detail.  Millions  of  francs  depend  upon  it.  We 
are  retained  at  a  large  figure  to  construct  the 
wheels.  Every  two  years  all  the  wheels  at  Monte 
Carlo  are  changed.     There  are  twelve  roulette 


38  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

tables  generally  in  use.  Every  two  years  we  send 
twelve  wheels  and  the  old  ones  are  returned  to  us 
to  be  broken  up.  We  can  just  make  twelve 
within  the  two  years.  This  one  is  the  last  of  the 
new  batch  which  will  be  dispatched  to  the  south 
in  three  days  in  charge  of  two  commissionaires 
from  Monaco,  who  will  never  leave  them  out  of 
their  sight  until  they  arrive  at  their  destination." 

Basil  listened  to  this  explanation  with  interest. 
He  had  never  been  to  Monte  Carlo,  though,  in 
common  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  he  had  heard 
many  fabulous  tales  of  the  great  gambling  centre 
of  the  world.  He  saw,  however,  that  Emile's 
imagination  was  profoundly  stirred,  and  he  lis- 
tened, half  dreamily,  to  the  quick  fire  of  eager 
questions  and  courteous  answers  which  passed  be- 
tween Deschamps  and  his  hosts. 

When  this  had  a  little  died  down,  Emile  turned 
to  him  and  noticed  his  half-abstracted,  half- 
amused  expression. 

"Ah,  mon  ami^'  he  said,  "you  wonder  at  me  I 
This  leaves  you  cold.  It  means  nothing  to  you. 
To  me,  who  have  been,  I  myself,  in  those  glitter- 
ing halls  of  Chance,  upon  the  edge  of  the  Medi- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  39 

terranean,  this  machine  brings  intoxicating  visions. 
It  tells  of  men  and  women  at  the  last  gasp 
of  hope,  ruined  in  fortune,  friendless,  and  with 
the  whole  face  of  the  world  set  against  them  like 
a  wall  of  polished  brass.  It  tells  me  of  a  man  like 
this  entering  through  the  great  doors  and  issuing 
forth  again  within  a  few  short  hours,  rich  be5^ond 
his  rosiest  dreams,  able  to  command  all  that  life 
has  to  offer,  the  divine  sense  of  power  flowing  in 
his  veins,  the  cold  brass  wall  gone  and  in  its 
place  a  garden  of  roses!     Seel" 

With  a  swift  motion  of  his  hands  he  picked  up 
one  of  the  little  ivory  balls  and  twirled  the  cap- 
stan in  the  disc.  The  painted  slots  began  to  re- 
volve, more  slowly  than  before. 

Then,  and  obviously  with  a  practised  hand, 
Emile  Deschamps  held  the  ball  between  the  thumb 
and  two  first  fingers  of  his  right  hand,  gave  a 
swift  motion  of  his  wrist,  and  the  little  ivory 
cylinder  whirled  round  the  top  of  the  basin  un- 
der the  overhanging  lip,  with  that  curious  dron- 
ing sound  that  no  one  who  has  ever  heard  it  can 
quite  forget. 

Click  I  crack!  crack!     The  speed  of  the  ball 


40  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

lessening,  it  was  now  rattling  upon  the  diamond- 
shaped  bosses  on  the  side  of  the  bowl,  losing  mo- 
mentum with  every  moment,  until  it  dropped 
upon  the  revolving  disc  below — revolving  in  the 
opposite  direction  to  itself. 

And  now  there  was  a  succession  of  sharp  taps, 
as  the  little  ball  was  tossed  by  the  edges  of  the 
slots  hither  and  thither,  furiously  jumping  from 
one  to  the  other,  flung  back  for  an  instant  upon 
the  sloping  side  of  the  basin,  returning  to  its  mad 
career  over  the  slots. 

And  then — a  sudden  final  click  as  it  fell  to  rest. 
Silence ! 

Immediately  Deschamps  put  his  finger  upon  the 
top  of  the  capstan  and  stopped  the  revolutions  of 
the  slots. 

"Seven — red!"  he  cried.  "Ah I  if  I  had  put 
but  nine  little  golden  louis  upon  that  number, 
within  a  quarter  of  a  minute  I  should  have  been 
richer  by  six  thousand  three  hundred  francs,  more 
than  twice  what  I  earn  in  a  whole  year,  Basil! 
In  twenty  little  seconds  I  Now,  do  you  see  what 
this  thing  may  mean*?" 

Basil  found  himself  strangely  affected  by  his 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  41 

friend's  enthusiasm.  He  knew  nothing  of 
roulette.  He  had  occasionally  seen  a  small  wheel 
in  a  toy  shop,  but  this  so  concrete  illustration  of 
the  game  startled  him  more  than  he  would  have 
been  willing  to  admit. 

The  thin  voice  of  Edouard  Carnet  broke  in. 
"Yes,  monsieur,"  he  said,  "that  is  one  vision,  but 
there  are  others.  Who  should  tell  of  those  un- 
happy men  who  have  followed  the  Goddess  of 
Chance  even  to  the  very  gates  of  death,  until  they 
have  opened  and  closed  upon  them  at  last. 
Somewhere  in  the  kingdom  of  Monaco  there  is  a 
hidden  graveyard;  none  know  where  it  is.  And 
in  that  dishonoured  plot  lies  hundreds  of  nameless 
ones,  who  have  yielded  up  their  all — happiness, 
honour,  life — to  the  ebony  basin." 

Basil  started.  The  words  seemed  to  come 
strangely  from  the  actual  artificer  of  the  wheel  of 
fortune.  Deschamps  also  looked  curiously  at  the 
little  man,  whose  face  had  suddenly  gone  grey 
and  whose  voice  trembled.  "But,  monsieur,"  he 
said,  in  a  hesitating  voice. 

The  other  made  a  gesture  with  his  hand. 
"Yes,  yes,"  he  replied,  "I  well  know  what  you 


42  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

would  say — such  words  come  strangely  from  me 
or  from  my  brother.  But,  monsieur" — he  tapped 
the  rim  of  the  bowl  with  a  thin  hand — "this  is  the 
very  last  of  these  engines  of  hell  that  I  or  Charles 
will  ever  make  I" 

He  paused,  struggling  with  some  deep  emotion. 
"We  had  a  nephew,"  he  continued,  "my  brother 
and  I;  the  only  relative  left  to  us  in  the  world. 
We  loved  him  as  if  he  had  been  a  son.  We  saved, 
invested,  and  worked  solely  for  him.  We  are 
rich,  monsieur  I  Not  only  have  our  earnings  been 
large,  but  we  have  saved,  and  invested  our  sav- 
ings in  safe  rents.  All,  all  was  to  have  been  his. 
Aristide  was  young,  clever,  and,  backed  by  the 
fortune  we  could  leave  him,  would  have  taken 
a  high  place  in  the  world.  He  had  gone  to  Mar- 
seilles on  business  for  us,  entrusted  with  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money.  Some  friends  took  him 
to  Monte  Carlo— it  was  only  three  months  ago. 
He  lost  this  money  of  ours  at  the  tables — lost  it 
by  means  of  one  of  the  very  wheels  we  had  made 
— and  in  despair  he  killed  himself,  though  God 
knows  how  gladly  we  would  have  forgiven  him. 
We  have  now  completed  our  last  contract  for  the 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  43 

Administration.  We  have  resigned  our  position, 
and  for  the  future  others  shall  make  the  wheels. 
We  will  touch  them  no  more." 

"Never  again,"  Charles  Carnet  echoed  his 
brother,  but  he  looked  lovingly  at  the  glittering 
thing  upon  the  table  nevertheless.  "No  one  will 
make  the  wheels  like  us  agam,"  he  said  with  a  sigh. 

The  four  men,  oddly  assorted  as  they  were, 
gathered  round  the  fire  once  more.  There  was 
but  little  conversation  now.  They  gazed  into 
the  glowing  heart  of  coals  and  wood-blocks,  each 
busily  occupied  with  his  own  troubled  thoughts. 

Basil  Gregory,  warmed  and  comfortable  as  he 
was  in  body,  felt  very  low  in  spirits.  One  of 
those  moments  had  come  to  him  when  life  seems 
a  spoilt  and  futile  thing.  The  future  stretched 
before  him  in  imagination  like  some  great  Essex 
marshland  at  evening,  when  the  colour  fades  out 
of  everything,  the  leaden  tides  creep  inwards  from 
the  sea,  and  the  curlews  pipe  to  each  other  with 
melanchol)''  voices,  like  souls  sick  for  love.  There 
was  nothing,  nothing  I  A  dreary  round  of  ill- 
paid  mechanical  duties,  a  long  engagement  which 
would  probably  never  end  in  marriage,  one  of  the 


44  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

most  epoch-making  inventions  the  world  could 
ever  know,  locked  up  in  his  mind  and  that  of  his 
friend,  Emile  Deschamps. 

Thus  the  thoughts  of  the  poor  Englishman, 
Basil  Gregory,  as  he  gazed  into  the  rose-pink  and 
amethyst  heart  of  the  hre. 

The  two  old  men  were  sadly  remembering  the 
recent  loss  of  the  bright- faced  boy  that  had  meant 
everything  in  their  narrow,  patient  lives. 

Sadness  lay  like  a  veil  upon  the  faces  of  all 
three. 

But  Emile  Deschamps'  face  was  not  sad.  It 
was  set  and  rigid.  Not  a  feature  of  it  moved. 
The  brow  was  wrinkled  and  knotted  with 
thoughts.  There  was  a  fixed  and  smouldering  fire 
in  the  eyes.  Once  Basil  looked  at  his  friend  and 
wondered  what  intense  and  concentrated  thought 
was  burning  and  glowing  in  the  great  executive 
brain  of  the  Southerner.  Had  he  known,  had 
an  inkling  of  it  reached  him,  he  would  have  leapt 
to  his  feet  in  the  wildest  excitement  he  had  ever 
known. 

For,  indeed,  the  fickle  Goddess  of  Chance  was 
abroad  this  night,  and  had  led  their  footsteps  to 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  45 

this  secluded  workshop.  Unseen,  unfelt  by  any 
save  only  Emile  Deschamps,  she  was  hovering  in 
the  room  where  the  wheels  of  her  votaries  were 
made. 

About  dawn  a  low  wind  arose  and  wailed 
around  the  quarter  of  the  wood-turners.  The 
deep  mist  vanished  as  grey  light  began  to  filter  in 
through  the  glass  roof  of  the  workshop.  With 
many  thanks  the  two  young  men  bade  their  hosts 
farewell,  and  went  out  into  the  chill  morning  air. 

A  pressing  invitation  to  come  again  whenever 
they  liked,  piped  in  unison  by  Brother  Charles 
and  Brother  Edouard,  was  the  last  sound  they 
heard  as  their  feet  echoed  up  the  deserted  street 
towards  the  great  main  thoroughfares  of  Paris. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  next  day  was  cold,  but  bright  and  sunny. 
From  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  dejeuner  at 
twelve  o'clock,  Ethel  McMahon  endeavoured  to 
instil  some  rudimentary  knowledge  of  English 
into  the  minds  of  the  fifteen-year-old  daughters 
of  prosperous  tradesmen  of  the  Luxembourg 
district  at  the  academy  for  young  ladies  of  the 
Demoiselles  de  Custine-Seraphin,  two  elderly 
ladies  in  whom  parsimony  and  the  proprieties 
struggled  for  mastery. 

With  many  a  sigh  and  shrug  of  disgust  her 
demure  charges  had  struggled  with  the  intricacies 
of  our  language,  had  conjugated  the  verb  "to 
love"  in  unexpected  fashions,  had  laboriously  as- 
similated the  information  that  "ze  weadder  is 
going  to  be  vef  fin  to-day,"  and  so  forth. 

At  twelve,   together  with  her  fellow-teachers, 

Mademoiselle  Marie  and  Mademoiselle  Augustine 

de  Custine-Seraphin,  Ethel  had  taken  the  second 

46 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  47 

breakfast  of  thin  soup,  pallid  mutton,  and  stale 
tartines  au  confiture.  At  one  she  was  free — free 
till  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening.  And  as  she  came 
downstairs  from  her  room  dressed  to  go  out,  her 
face  was  so  radiant  and  changed  in  expression  that 
Mademoiselle  Marie  de  Custine-Seraphin  tossed 
her  head  as  the  girl  passed,  and  gave  it  as  her 
undoubted  opinion  to  her  sister  that  la  jeune 
anglaise  was  certainly  going  to  do  more  than 
spend  a  quiet  afternoon  and  evening  with  her  in- 
valid mother. 

"Figure  to  yourself,  Augustine;  her  face  was 
of  the  most  beaming,  her  eye  had  sparkle,  her 
cheeks  were  colour  of  rose.  Ca  fait  un  amant^ 
n'est-ce  pas?'" 

''A  la  jeunesse,  coiyime  a  la  jeunesse^'"  her  sis- 
ter replied  with  a  shrug,  and  went  on  making  up 
the  account  of  Mademoiselle  Hortense  Dubois, 
the  well-to-do  butcher's  daughter  who  was  leaving 
school  that  quarter. 

Ethel  McMahon  hurried  out  of  the  quiet  street 
in  which  the  school  was  situated,  walking  towards 
the  Luxembourg. 

She  was  a  typically  Irish  girl  in  feature,  with 


48  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

those  dark-blue  eyes,  like  hot  Venetian  water,  that 
hair  black  as  a  bog-oak  root,  that  complexion  of 
cream  and  roses  that  is  hardly  seen  anywhere  out- 
side the  Isle  of  Unrest.  She  was  tall  and  walked 
with  a  swing,  as  she  threaded  her  way  among  the 
chic  and  mincing  Parisiennes  towards  her 
mother's  tiny  flat  in  the  Rue  Paczensky. 

Dull  as  the  girl's  life  waS,  hard  as  she  worked 
all  day,  her  youth  and  vitality  were  stronger  than 
the  power  of  circumstances.  Vivid  and  impul- 
sive in  all  she  did,  a  constant  spring  of  hope  welled 
up  within  her,  and  she  was  certain  that  sooner 
or  later — she  believed  very  soon — everything  in 
her  life  would  come  right.  Dear  Basil  would  get 
some  lucrative  appointment,  the  great  invention 
would  be  financed  by  some  kindly  millionaire  who 
would  appear  in  the  nick  of  time.  They  would 
get  married,  her  mother  would  be  able  to  live  in 
the  far  healthier  air  of  the  Alps,  as  the  doctor  had 
ordered.  Day  in  and  day  out  Ethel  was  con- 
vinced that  all  would  be  well,  and  whenever  she 
saw  her  lover  she  comforted  and  inspirited  him 
as  if  they  were  indeed  husband  and  wife. 

Mrs.   McMahon's  flat  of  two  rooms   and  a 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  49 

kitchen  was  high  up  in  the  great  drab  block  of 
buildings,  and,  small  as  it  was,  the  rent,  as  is  the 
case  with  all  flats  in  Paris,  was  proportionately 
high. 

As  she  entered  the  hallway  Ethel  was  handed 
a  bundle  of  letters  by  the  concierge.  She  did  not 
examine  them  at  the  moment,  but  ran  lightly  up 
the  stairs  to  the  flat. 

Mrs.  McMahon  was  seated  by  the  window  of 
the  sitting-room.  A  lace  pillow  with  its  pins 
and  reels  of  thread  was  upon  the  table  before  her, 
and  her  thin  hands  were  moving  quickly  and 
deftly  over  it  hither  and  thither. 

It  was  Mrs.  McMahon' s  specialty  to  copy  old 
Valenciennes  lace,  which  she  did  for  a  firm  in  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli.  The  labour  was  intense,  the 
process  wearingly  long,  but  the  few  hundred 
francs  earned  during  the  year  by  this  means 
helped  to  pay  the  rent. 

She  was  a  tall,  faded  woman.  The  hair,  which 
had  once  been  as  black  as  her  daughter's,  was  now 
scanty  and  iron-grey.  All  the  light  had  faded 
from  the  blue  eyes,  and  she  was  painfully  thin. 
She  returned  her  daughter's  caresses  without  much 


so  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

animation,  and  sat  back  in  her  old-fashioned  chair 
with  her  hands  lying  idly  in  her  lap,  gazing  at  the 
girl  in  a  lack-lustre  way  as  she  moved  quickly 
about  the  room,  taking  off  her  hat  and  stole  of 
cheap  fur,  giving  a  touch  to  the  furniture  here 
and  there,  and  putting  a  little  bunch  of  dark-red 
asters,  which  she  had  bought,  into  a  vase  upon 
the  dining-table. 

"Well,  Ethel,  I  suppose  you  have  no  news'?  I 
hope  those  old  cats" — Mrs.  McMahon  was  accus- 
tomed to  refer  to  the  Demoiselles  de  Custine- 
Seraphin  in  this  way — "I  hope  those  old  cats  have 
been  behaving  themselves  better.  I  cannot  think 
why  you  stay  with  them.  Surely  a  girl  with  your 
knowledge  of  French  as  well  as  English,  and  with 
your  appearance,  could  get  something  better  to 
do.     The  salary  they  pay  you  is  disgraceful." 

Ethel  shook  her  head  brightly;  this  was  an  old 
ground  of  debate  between  herself  and  the  queru- 
lous invalid.  "My  dear  mother,"  she  said,  "I 
really  cannot  afford  to  wait  for  anything  better 
to  turn  up.  If  I  could,  possibly  I  might  get 
something  better  to  do,  but  that  would  mean  com- 
ing home  for  perhaps  three  or  four  months,  and 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  51 

you  know  we  cannot  possibly  afford  that.  While 
I  am  at  the  school,  of  course,  I  cannot  go  looking 
after  another  post.  So  I  must  make  the  best  of 
it,  that's  all." 

Mrs.  McMahon  coughed  fretfully.  "How 
horrified  your  poor  dear  father  would  have  been," 
she  said,  "at  the  life  you  are  leading  now  I  It 
is  my  one  consolation  that  Providence  has  spared 
him  that  I" 

Ethel  said  nothing  in  answer,  though  she  had 
her  doubts  upon  the  subject.  The  late  Captain 
McMahon  had  retired  from  the  Irish  Guards  soon 
after  getting  his  company  and  marrying  pretty 
Miss  Persse  of  county  Galway.  There  were  not 
wanting  those  who  said  that  his  retirement  was 
m.ore  or  less  compulsory  owing  to  rather  too  pro- 
nounced successes  while  holding  the  bank  at  bac- 
carat or  chemin  de  fer.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
Ethel's  memory  of  her  childhood  in  various  more 
or  less  shady  Continental  resorts  was  by  no  means 
a  pleasant  one.  Captain  McMahon  had  been 
one  of  those  people  whose  whole  philosophy  is 
summed  up  in  the  expression,  "Hang  it,  the  luck 
must  turn!"     He  had  wooed  fortune  wherever  a 


52  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

casino  or  gambling  hell  was  to  be  found  upon  the 
Continent  of  Europe;  he  had  wooed  her  in  vain; 
the  luck  never  did  turn. 

However,  it  was  doubtless  owing  to  this  per- 
sistent optimism  inculcated  by  her  father  that 
Ethel  herself  was  enabled  to  bear  up  against  the 
drab  monotony  of  her  life.  She  also  felt  instinc- 
tively that  "the  luck  must  turn."  As  for  Mrs. 
McMahon  herself,  while  she  affected  a  consist- 
ent despair  and  the  gloomiest  outlook  upon  the 
future,  she  secretly  nourished  the  most  ex- 
travagant hopes,  and  was  as  much  a  gambler  in 
temperament  as  her  husband  had  been  in  action. 
Only  the  most  limited  opportunities  of  exercising 
her  passion  were  given  her,  but  of  these  she  took 
advantage  to  the  full. 

"I  cannot  think,"  the  elder  lady  went  on, 
"what  that  lover  of  yours  can  be  about.  Oh,  I 
have  nothing  to  say  against  Basil,"  she  said  hur- 
riedly, as  she  saw  Ethel's  colour  begin  to  rise,  and 
her  mouth  to  harden  into  mutiny.  "Basil  is  a 
good  fellow  enough,  and,  of  course,  I  know  he  is 
very  clever  at  his  electricity,  and  so  on.  He  and 
that   young   Frenchman,    Monsieur   Deschamps, 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  53 

have  no  doubt  got  a  fortune  in  their  heads,  as  you 
are  always  telling  me.  All  that  I  can  say  is  that 
it  seems  likely  to  stay  there.  With  your  blood 
Ethel,  for  both  the  Persses  and  the  McMahons 
rode  straight  for  anything  they  wanted,  I  wonder 
at  your  choosing  a  boy  like  Basil,  who  seems  to 
have  no  initiative,  no  dash.  Ah,  well !  I  suppose 
there  are  no  soldiers  of  fortune  nowadays.  But, 
still,  with  your  name  and  your  appearance,  I  think 
you  might  have  done  better  for  yourself." 

Ethel  knew  it  was  useless  to  answer  anything  to 
this.  She  let  her  mother  run  on  until  she  was 
tired,  and  then  began  to  make  tea,  with  a  little 
spirit  kettle. 

As  she  was  doing  this,  she  noticed  the  little 
pile  of  letters  that  the  concierge  had  handed  to 
her.  The  top  one  had  not  come  by  post,  and  was 
unstamped.  Ethel  knew  the  writing  very  well. 
It  was  that  of  the  clerk  who  sent  out  demands 
and  receipts  for  the  rent  at  the  office. 

"Ah!"  she  said;  "here  is  the  receipt  for  the 
quarter's  rent."  She  had  given  her  mother  the 
money  to  pay  it  some  time  ago,  and  without  think- 
ing what  she  was  doing,  she  opened  the  envelope. 


54  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Mrs.  McMahon  rose  from  her  seat  in  consider- 
able agitation.  Her  hands  trembled  a  little,  and 
a  bright  colour  came  into  her  wan  face. 

''Why,  mother,"  Ethel  said  in  alarm,  "this  is 
not  a  receipt  at  all!  This  is  a  letter  from  the 
office  saying  that  the  rent  is  much  overdue,  and 
pressing  for  immediate  payment.  I  gave  you  the 
money  I"  The  words  died  away  from  her  lips  as 
she  saw  the  old  lady,  a  picture  of  embarrassment, 
standing  before  her. 

"My  dear,"  said  Mrs.  McMahon,  in  a  shaking 
voice,  "you  really  must  allow  me  to  manage  the 
household  finances  in  my  own  way.  I  am  older 
and  more  experienced  in  life  than  you.  I  have 
temporarily — er — well,  invested  the  rent  money 
in  the  hopes,  in  the  almost  certainty,  that  in  a  day 
or  so  I  shall  be  repaid  a  hundred-fold." 

Ethel  sat  down  at  the  table  with  a  deep  sigh. 
"Oh,  mother  I"  she  said  in  a  pleading  voice,  "how 
could  you,  how  could  you  really  *?  I  suppose 
that  it  is  one  of  those  wretched  lotteries  again. 
I  should  not  like  to  think  how  many  precious 
francs  have  been  simply  thrown  away  in  the  last 
year   or  two.     Hundreds    and   hundreds.     It   is 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  SS 

simply  madness  to  spend  two  or  three  hundred 
francs  on  a  ticket  for  one  of  the  wretched  things 
when  we  have  hardly  money  for  the  necessaries  of 
life." 

The  old  lady  began  to  cry  weakly.  "I  did  it 
for  the  best,  Ethel,"  she  said.  "I  am  sure  I 
thought  that  my  bad  luck  could  not  go  on  much 
longer.     I  had  such  hopes  this  time." 

Ethel  saw  her  opportunity.  While  her  mother 
was  in  this  state  of  penitence  she  might  perhaps 
make  a  lasting  impression. 

"Mother,"  she  said,  earnestly,  "gambling  nearly 
ruined  my  grandfather;  it  quite  ruined  father. 
We  could  not  be  much  worse  off  than  we  are,  but 
don't  throw  away  the  last  thing  that  keeps  us 
from  absolute  starvation.  Do  not  destroy  the 
roof  over  our  heads  I  If  there  were  only  some- 
thing in  It,  I  should  not  so  much  mind.  To  win 
anything  in  these  affairs  robs  nobody.  But 
there  never  Is  anything  in  it,  worse  luck.  From 
us,  at  any  rate,  the  spirit  of  Chance  has  turned 
her  head ;  gambling  of  any  sort  is  ruin." 

"It  is — it  is,"  the  old  lady  sobbed,  now  thor- 
oughly broken  down.     "Oh,   that  I  had  never 


56  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

been  drawn  into  it,  had  never  had  the  poison  in- 
stilled into  my  blood  I  But  this  is  the  last  time, 
Ethel,  dear;  it  is  the  last  time,  I  promise  you. 
And  how  to  pay  the  rent  I  do  not  know." 

Ethel  sighed  heavily.  The  rent  could  be  paid 
this  time,  she  knew.  She  had  been  fortunate  in 
securing  some  extra  English  lessons  during  the 
last  quarter — lessons  which  were  given  privately 
to  a  girl  of  about  her  own  age,  and  which  had 
brought  her  in  a  few  louis;  but  she  had  wanted 
this  money  so  badly  for  clothes.  It  was  dread- 
ful to  go  out  with  Basil  on  their  rather  rare  holi- 
days and  to  look  dowdy  and  shabby,  as  she  was 
only  too  conscious  of  being.  She  knew — what 
pretty  girl  does  not? — how  important  decent 
clothes  are,  and  she  longed  that  her  lover  should 
see  her  dressed  like  other  maidens  in  the  restau- 
rants and  minor  places  of  amusement  where  he 
was  able  to  take  her.  And  now — that  was  an- 
other little  dream  gone.  The  old  brown  coat  and 
skirt  and  the  imitation  astrachan  muff  and  stole 
would  have  to  do  for  the  rest  of  the  winter ;  there 
was  bitterness  in  the  thought  which  no  man  can 
fathom. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  57 

"Oh,  well,"  she  said  in  a  dull  voice,  "I  have 
saved  up  a  little,  and  I  suppose  it  will  be  enough 
for  the  rent.  But,  oh,  mother,  how  could  you  do 
it!" 

"Never  again!  never  again!"  wailed  the  old 
lady,  and  with  a  dull  pain  at  her  heart  Ethel  left 
the  room  and  went  into  the  little  kitchen  to  fetch 
the  tea  things. 

She  was  a  little  longer  in  the  kitchen  than  she 
had  anticipated.  Tears  were  in  her  eyes  also,  and 
it  required  all  her  resolution  and  self-control  to 
keep  them  back,  and  to  preserve  her  ordinary  com- 
posure. At  last,  with  a  heavy  sigh  and  trying  to 
twist  her  face  into  the  semblance  of  a  smile,  she 
took  up  the  tray  and  went  back  into  the  sitting- 
room,  resolved  to  comfort  her  mother  as  well  as 
she  could. 

Mrs.  McMahon,  to  her  daughter's  immense  sur- 
prise, was  standing  by  the  window,  verj^  erect, 
with  all  traces  of  recent  tears  and  penitence  ab- 
solutely gone  from  her  face.  There  was  a  su- 
perior and  almost  haughty  smile  upon  the  old 
lady's  lips. 


58  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Ethel  stared  in  wild  astonishment  at  this  trans- 
formation. 

"Put  the  things  down,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs. 
McMahon,  in  a  calm  and  patronising  voice. 
"Perhaps  when  you  have  heard  what  I  have  got  to 
say,  you  will  realise  the  wisdom  of  trusting  to 
older  and  more  experienced  people.  I  do  not 
blame  you,  Ethel;  you  are  but  a  child  after  all 
and  can  know  nothing  of  the  world.  But  I  do 
ask  you  to  trust  to  the  wisdom  and  judgment  of 
your  elders  in  future.  If  you  do  so,  and  allow 
yourself  to  be  guided  by  me  in  everything,  then 
we  shall  very  soon  be  relieved  from  our  present 
position,  and  be  able  to  return  to  that  place  in  so- 
ciety which  our  birth  and  connections  warrant." 

Ethel  dropped  the  tray  some  inches  upon  the 
table  with  a  crash.  Her  lower  lip  dropped. 
Her  eyes  were  wide. 

Mrs.  MacMahon  looked  down  upon  her  daugh- 
ter— she  was  slightly  taller  than  Ethel  when  she 
stood  erect — with  a  kindly  and  compassionate 
smile,  as  one  looks  at  a  beloved  but  tiresome  and 
fretful  child. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  "that  a  little  sum  of  two 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  59 

thousand  five  hundred  francs  would  be  sufficient 
to  pay  the  rent?" 

Ethel  gasped. 

"I  suppose,"  Mrs.  McMahon  continued,  "that 
you  would  regard  a  return  of  a  hundred  pounds 
for  an  investment  of  ten  fairly  remunerative?" 

Ethel  murmured  something  or  other,  she  hardly 
knew  what. 

Then  Mrs.  McMahon  condescended  to  explain. 
Her  eagerness  burst  through,  her  high  comedy 
manner  vanished. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  my  dear  I"  she  cried,  "the  luck 
has  turned  at  last !  After  all  these  years  I  Look ! 
look  I" 

With  shaking  hands  she  held  out  some  papers 
to  Ethel.  A  typewritten  sheet  was  headed, 
"Koniglich  -  Preussiche  -  Klassen  -  Lotterie,"  and 
stated  in  French  that  Mrs.  McMahon,  who  had 
purchased  the  eighth  of  a  ticket  in  the  famous 
Berlin  lotterj^  had  thereby  won  a  sum  of  2,000 
Marks  German,  or — was  added  in  parentheses — 
2,500  francs.  A  pink  draft  upon  the  Credit 
Lyonnais  was  enclosed  for  the  sum. 

"Oh,  mother  I"  Ethel  gasped,  in  the  sudden 


6o  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

shock,  "two  thousand  five  hundred  francs!  A 
hundred  pounds!"  And,  quite  forgetful  of  her 
former  strictures,  she  hugged  the  trembling  old 
lady  again  and  again.  "We  are  rich!  we  are 
rich!"  she  cried,  and  a  vision  crossed  her  mind 
of  an  inexpensive  hat  she  had  but  lately  seen  in 
the  Rue  de  Rivoli — a  perfect  duck  of  a  hat! 

They  sat  down  to  tea,  and  never  was  there  a 
happier  meal.  Ethel  was  to  meet  Basil  at  six, 
and  he  was  to  take  her  out  to  dinner. 

"Oh,  mother,"  she  said,  "how  delighted  Basil 
will  be  to  hear  the  news !  I  am  so  sorry  I  spoke 
as  I  did,  but  it  all  seemed  so  hopeless.  I  see  now 
that  I  was  wrong." 

Mrs.  McMahon  smiled.  "My  dear,"  she  said, 
"remember  that  it  is  a  rule  in  life  that  nothing 
venture,  nothing  have.  This  money  seems  a  great 
deal,  no  doubt,  and  it  certainly  more  than  repays 
all  that  I  have  spent  to  get  it,  so  that  we  are  on 
the  right  side,  after  all,  as  your  poor  dear  father 
used  to  say.  But  it  is  a  principle  in  these  affairs 
. — and  you  will  admit  now  that  I  know  something 
about  them — always  to  follow  up  your  luck.  It 
is  the  people  who  do  not  do  that  who  never  de- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  61 

serve  to  have  any,  and  very  rarely  do  have  any." 

Ethel  did  not  quite  understand  what  the  elder 
lady  meant,  but  she  nodded.     "Go  on,  mother 
dear,"  she  answered. 

Mrs.  McMahon,  who  for  the  last  two  or  three 
minutes  had  been  sitting  lost  in  thought,  turned 
to  her  daughter.  Her  face  was  grave,  but  it 
showed  a  strangely  suppressed  excitement,  and 
there  was  an  odd  glimmer  in  her  eyes.  "First  of 
all,  dear,"  she  said,  "we  must  pay  the  rent.  Your 
little  savings  will  not  be  required,  after  all.  You 
can  renovate  your  wardrobe,  and  I  will  add  some- 
thing to  help  you.  More  especially,  you  will 
have  to  get  a  really  good  evening  gown,  and  a 
smart  hat  to  wear  with  it." 

Ethel  stared.  "But,  mother,"  she  said,  "surely 
that  is  an  extravagance'?  I  never  go  anywhere 
where  a  smart  evening  gown  is  wanted.  And  you 
know  what  such  things  cost." 

"A  smart  evening  gown,"  Mrs.  McMahon  went 
on,  almost  as  if  she  were  talking  to  herself.  "We 
must  spend  as  little  as  possible  upon  it,  but  it 
must  be  decent.  For  myself,  I  have  something 
that  will  do — that  is,  in  the  first  instance." 


62  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

"What  are  you  talking  about,  mother  dcar^" 
Ethel  asked. 

"Now  listen,  Ethel,"  her  mother  replied.  "A 
chance  has  come  to  us.  It  may  well  be  our  one 
and  only  chance.  We  must  grasp  it,  or  let  it  go 
by  for  ever.  Fortune  always  turns  her  face  away 
from  those  who  refuse  to  follow  when  she  beckons. 
I  have  a  plan.  We  must  take  Fortune  at  the 
flood,  as  I  said.  To  begin  with,  we  must  tell 
Basil  Gregory  nothing  whatever  of  this  little  bit 
of  good  fortune  which  has  befallen  us.  You 
must  not  say  a  word  to  him  about  it,  or  even  hint 
at  it." 

"Oh,  but  mother,  he  would  be  so  delighted  to 
know.     I  always  share  everything  with  Basil." 

"No  doubt,"  said  Mrs.  McMahon,  "but  in  this 
case  I  want  you  to  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  You 
will  know  why  in  a  moment.  Basil,  dear  fellow 
as  he  is — I  am  sorry  I  made  some  petulant  re- 
m.arks  about  your  engagement  a  few  minutes  ago 
— is  an  Englishman.  Apart  from  his  high  scien- 
tific attainments,  which  have  yet  to  be  proved, 
by  the  way,  Basil  has  all  the  Englishman's  solid- 
ity and  caution.     He  is  not  imaginative.     He  is 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  63 

not  a  man  to  risk  anything  upon  a  supreme  chance. 
Now,  regard  the  situation  in  which  we  are." 

"We  are  free  from  all  debt,  at  any  rate,"  Ethel 
answered  wonderingly;  "and  we  shall  have  a  nice 
little  surplus  in  hand." 

"You  must  look  farther  than  that,  my  dear," 
said  her  mother,  with  the  odd  brightness  in  her 
eyes  growing  more  marked  than  ever.  "A  hun- 
dred pounds  is  all  very  well.  We  may  buy  shares 
in  other  lottery  tickets.  We  may  even  buy  a 
whole  ticket,  but  that  is  a  single  chance,  and  means 
a  great  deal  of  waiting.  Since  Fortune  is 
smiling  upon  us  there  is  another  and  surer  way 
to  court  her  favours.  I  have  been  thinking 
quickly,  as  I  generally  do  when  there  is  something 
important  to  be  decided.  With  this  money" — 
she  began  to  speak  slowly  and  impressively — "you 
and  I  can  go  to  Monte  Carlo.  We  can  go  by  the 
slow  train,  third  class.  It  will  take  us  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  not  be  very  comfortable.  But 
that  I  can  endure,  and  if  I  can,  then  so  can  you. 
I  know  the  Principality  of  Monaco  very  well.  At 
Monte  Carlo  itself  all  the  hotels  and  places  are 
terribly  expensive,   and  far  beyond  our  means, 


64  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

but  only  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away,  in  that  part 
known  as  the  Condamine,  there  are  lots  of  quite 
inexpensive  pensions  which  would  serve  our  pur- 
pose very  well." 

"But  what  on  earth  are  we  to  do  in  Monte 
Carlo ■?  and  how  can  I  leave  the  school?" 

"The  school,  my  dear  Ethel,  is  of  minor  im- 
portance. Nothing  venture,  nothing  have. 
What  we  are  to  do  at  Monte  Carlo  is  to  turn 
what  will  remain  of  our  hundred  pounds  into  such 
a  sum  as  will  make  us  independent  for  the  rest  of 
our  lives — a  sum  that  will  allow  me  to  go  to 
Switzerland,  as  the  doctor  ordered,  that  will  start 
you  comfortably  in  your  married  life  with  Basil 
Gregory." 

The  last  shot  told,  and  set  the  girl's  pulses 
throbbing  furiously. 

"Oh,  mother,"  she  said,  "if  it  were  only  pos- 
sible!" 

"It  is  perfectly  possible,  my  dear  Ethel,"  Mrs. 
McMahon  returned,  and  there  was  such  calm  cer- 
tainty in  her  tone  that  the  eager  girl,  carried  off 
her  feet  by  the  arrival  of  the  lottery  cheque,  and 
the  brilliant  vista  which  was  beginning  to  unveil 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  65 

itself,  hardly  questioned  her  mother's  wisdom  at 
all. 

"I  know  Monte  Carlo  very  well,"  said  the  old 
lady.  "I  was  there  often  enough  with  your  poor 
dear  father.  On  one  occasion  he  lost  every  penny 
he  had  at  the  tables  there,  and  we  were  compelled 
to  apply  to  the  Administration  for  what  they  call 
the  viatique — that  is,  a  sufficient  sum  to  pay  our 
expenses  back  to  Paris,  from  whence  we  had  come. 
It  is  never  refused.  But,  on  looking  back,  I  see 
how  foolish  both  your  father  and  I  were.  We 
played  recklessly.  We  ignored  the  most  ele- 
mentary rules  of  chance.  We  were  rightly  pun- 
ished. For  many  months  now  I  have  been 
dreaming  of  just  such  a  chance  as  has  come  to  us 
at  last.  I  have  been  studying  the  new  book 
written  by  a  professor,  who  won  large  sums  of 
money  at  Monte  Carlo,  in  the  interests  of  mathe- 
matics, on  the  Theory  of  Probabilities.  I  have 
gained  much  knowledge  from  it.  I  propose  to 
utilise  that  knowledge  very  shortly." 

"Then  you  have  definite  plans?"  Ethel  asked. 

"Perfectly  definite,  my  dear.  I  have  only  been 
waiting  to  put  them  into  execution.     The  time  has 


66  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

now  arrived.  We  will  get  the  necessary  clothes — 
for  in  order  to  obtain  the  entree  to  the  Casino, 
one  must  be  decently  dressed — and  we  will  go  to 
Monte  Carlo  at  once.  Three  days'  careful  play 
at  roulette — for  I  do  not  intend  to  go  near  the 
trente-et-quarante  tables — will  either  see  us  with  a 
sufficient  fortune  for  our  needs  or  take  all  we  have 
got.  Even  if  it  does,  we  shall  be  little  worse  off 
than  we  are  at  present.  Nothing  can  take  my 
hundred  a  year  from  me,  and  you  will  easily  find 
another  post.  It  may  even  be  that  you  can  ob- 
tain a  week's  leave  of  absence  from  those  old  cats. 
It  is  worth  while  trying,  at  any  rate.  If  not, 
you  must  resign  the  whole  thing.  For  my  part, 
I  feel  fully  confident  that  you  will  never  have  to 
go  back  to  such  dreary  drudgery." 

Confidence  expressed  in  an  authoritative  tone  by 
an  elder  is  infectious.  Confidence  already  backed 
up  by  an  initial  proof  is  more  infectious  still. 
Ethel  McMahon's  scruples,  doubts  and  hesitations 
vanished  utterly,  and  she  threw  herself  whole- 
heartedly into  her  mother's  scheme. 


CHAPTER  IV 

At  six  o'clock  Basil  came  for  Ethel.  Mrs.  Mc- 
Mahon  greeted  him  rather  more  kindly  than  usual, 
and  he  noticed  it  with  some  surprise,  for  he  was 
always  conscious  that  the  old  lady  did  not  care 
much  for  him.  A  humble-minded  man,  and  bit- 
terly conscious  of  his  unsuccessful  life,  he  was 
certain  that  such  a  radiant  being  as  Ethel  was  a 
thousand  times  too  good  for  him,  and  was  even 
inclined  to  acquiesce  in  the  old  lady's  estimate  in 
a  way  that  provoked  his  fiancee  enormously. 

He  noticed  also  that  in  addition  to  the  access 
of  kindliness,  there  was  a  distinct  patronage  in 
Mrs.  McMahon's  manner.  Her  usual  despond- 
ency seemed  to  have  disappeared.  She  spoke 
largely  and  vaguely  of  "the  future."  He  could 
not  understand  it  at  all. 

"What  on  earth  has  happened  to  your  mother^" 
he  asked  Ethel,  as  they  descended  the  stone  stairs 

e)7 


68  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

towards  the  street.  "I  never  saw  her  so  chirpy, 
darling." 

Ethel  hesitated  for  a  moment.  She  was  bright 
and  animated  herself,  and  she  pressed  his  arai 
affectionately  before  replying.  She  was  so  ac- 
customed to  share  her  every  hope  and  thought  with 
her  lover  that  she  found  it  difficult  to  frame  a 
suitable  reply.  "Oh,  well,  you  know,  mother  has 
ups  and  downs  like  the  rest  of  us,"  she  said  at 
length.  "To-day  she  is  in  particularly  good 
spirits." 

Basil  sighed.  "I  wish  I  had  the  recipe,"  he 
said;  "try  to  get  it  from  her.  It  would  be  par- 
ticularly useful  just  now." 

"Are  you  depressed,  dear?"  the  girl  asked. 

"Horribly;  things  seem  worse  than  ever.  Oh, 
Ethel,  darling,  it  is  dreadful  to  say  so,  but  I  do 
not  think  we  shall  ever  be  married !" 

"You  are  not  to  talk  like  that,  Basil ;  it  is  per- 
fectly ridiculous,  and  I  won't  have  it.  Look  at 
me.     Am  I  depressed?" 

"No,"  the  man  answered,  looking  wonderingly 
at  her.  "You  have  caught  your  mother's  mood. 
But  the  last  time  we  were  out  together,  if  you 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  69 

remember,  you  were  as  sad  as  I.  We  walked 
about  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  for  an  hour  be- 
wailing our  lot." 

"Yes,  and  after  dinner  we  were  as  happy  as 
possible,  and  made  all  sorts  of  plans.  We  fur- 
nished the  drawing-room  that  evening,  I  think — 
or  was  it  the  dining-room?" 

Basil  laughed,  but  there  was  no  mirth  in  his 
laughter.  "It  doesn't  matter  much,"  he  replied, 
"but  to-night  I  do  not  think  I  could  take  any 
interest  in  the  attics  of  our  Castle  in  Spain.  For 
that's  what  it  is,  dearest,  at  present,  and  that's 
what  I  am  sure  it  will  remain." 

"I  have  told  you  before,  Basil,  that  you  are 
not  to  talk  like  that.  I  simply  won't  have  it. 
Entend'tu?  Has  anything  happened  to  make 
you  feel  more  despondent  than  usual'?" 

"Well,  not  exactly,  and  yet  in  a  way  there  has, 
though  it  is  only  a  little  thing." 

"Tell  me,  dear." 

"Oh,  only  that  Deschamps  has  suddenly  grown 
quite  extraordinary  in  his  manner.  You  know 
what  absolute  friends  we  were?" 

"I   know,"   she   nodded.     "Have   I  not  been 


70  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

horribly  jealous  of  you  two  at  times,  sitting 
correcting  exercises  in  that  dreadful  school  in 
the  evening,  and  thinking  of  you  two  men 
talking  away  together  without  anyone  to  inter- 
rupt?' 

Man-like,  Basil  Gregory  did  not  quite  appreci- 
ate the  underlying  feeling  in  this  remark. 

"It  has  simply  kept  me  alive,"  he  went  on, 
"and  kept  hope  burning  within  me  to  be  with 
Emile  Deschamps.  You  see,  our  invention  is 
just  as  much  his  as  mine.  We  have  worked  it 
out  together  as  if  with  one  mind.  Our  interests 
are  absolutely  identical." 

"But  I  don't  exactly  understand  what  has  hap- 
pened, Basil." 

"His  manner  has  absolutely  changed  ever  since 
last  night,  when  we  had  quite  an  adventure,  he 
and  I." 

"An  adventure?"  she  asked  quickly.  "And 
what  was  that?" 

In  reply  Basil  told  her  the  whole  history  of  the 
fantastic  night.  He  told  it  well,  warming  to  the 
work  as  he  did  so,  and  she  saw  the  picture  un- 
fold itself — the  queer,  bird-like  little  men,  the 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  71 

huge  workshop  with  its  strange  implements,  the 
welcome  hospitality. 

"And  then,"  he  concluded,  "it  turned  out  that 
they  were  hereditary  makers  of  the  roulette  wheels 
for  the  gambling  at  Monte  Carlo.  They  have 
made  them  for  ever  so  many  years,  and  they  were 
just  employed  upon  the  last  wheel  of  all  on  that 
very  night.  They  are  going  to  resign  their  posi- 
tion. They  have  made  sufficient  money  upon 
which  to  live,  and  a  young  nephew  of  theirs,  who 
gambled  at  Monte  Carlo  with  money  that  was 
not  his  own,  and  afterwards  committed  suicide,  has 
disgusted  them,  very  naturally,  with  the  whole 
thing." 

Ethel's  reply  amazed  him. 

They  were  approaching  the  Rue  Crois  de  Petits 
Champs,  and  she  stopped  upon  the  pavement  and 
positively  clutched  his  arm. 

"And  will  the  wheel  you  saw  actually  be  used 
at  Monte  Carlo?"  she  asked  in  a  voice  that  had 
suddenly  become  almost  breathless. 

He  nodded,  too  surprised  to  speak. 

"And  you  touched  it?" 

"Oh,  yes;  I  twirled  the  beastly  thing  round,  if 


72  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

that's  what  you  mean.  But  why  all  this  inter- 
est?" 

Again  for  a  moment  she  answered  nothing, 
though  her  face  had  grown  suddenly  pale  from 
excitement. 

"I  cannot  tell  you,"  she  said  at  length,  "though 
it  may  seem  strange  to  you.  It  is  a  sudden 
thought,  that  is  all.  And,  oh,  Basil,  dear,  I  some- 
how believe  that  it  is  a  good  omen,  that  it  means 
fortune  for  both  of  us.     Oh,  I'm  certain  of  it." 

"What  a  queer  little  darling  you  are !"  he  said, 
with  a  laugh  at  her  earnest  manner.  "But  we 
must  not  block  up  the  pavement  like  this.  Come 
along." 

They  went  onwards  to  their  destination,  a 
quaint  little  restaurant  known  as  the  "Restaurant 
de  1  Universe  et  Portugal,"  which  they  had  dis- 
covered some  weeks  before,  and  where  one  could' 
get  a  really  excellent  dinner  for  two  francs  fifty 
a  head. 

For  the  remaining  three  minutes  of  their  walk 
neither  of  them  said  anything.  Every  pulse  in 
Ethel's  body  was  leaping  with  excitement. 

The  coincidence  was  too  strange.     She  was  not 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  73 

more  superstitious  than  most  people,  though  like 
most  people  she  had  an  undefined  though  real 
belief  in  premonitions  and  omens.  And  in  this 
case  the  wish  was  indeed  father  to  the  thought. 
She  had  been  so  carried  away  by  the  minor  suc- 
cess of  the  ticket  in  the  first  instance,  and  by  her 
mother's  plan  in  the  second,  that  Basil's  story 
seemed  almost  a  direct  and  miraculous  confirma- 
tion of  her  hopes.  When  they  were  seated  at 
their  accustomed  table  in  the  comer  of  the  quiet 
little  restaurant,  and  a  delicious  pot  au  feu  was 
before  them,  she  began  to  ply  her  lover  with 
eager  questions,  making  him  recount  every  detail 
of  the  previous  evening.  He  told  her  all  that 
she  wished  to  know,  but  suddenly  she  noticed 
that  his  face  was  still  sad,  and  his  eyes  dreamy  and 
introspective. 

She  remembered  with  a  pang  of  accusation  what 
he  had  been  saying  about  Emile  Deschamps. 

"Oh,  Basil,"  she  said  with  pretty  penitence, 
"here  am  I  bothering  you  about  last  night,  and 
you  have  not  even  told  me  what  you  were  going 
to  about  Monsieur  Deschamps.  You  said  some- 
thing had  depressed  you — some  change  in  him*?" 


74  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

"Well,  it  has,"  the  young  man  replied.  "When 
we  got  home  in  the  early  morning  to  our  hotel  we 
neither  of  us  wanted  to  go  to  bed,  so  we  lit  the 
stove  and  sat  up  in  my  room.  I  could  not  get 
Emile  to  say  a  word.  He  absolutely  refused  to 
discuss  the  events  in  the  Rue  Petite  Louise.  He 
scowled  at  me  when  I  tried  to  draw  him  into 
conversation,  as  if  I  were  trying  to  do  him  some 
injury.  I  have  never  known  him  like  that.  Af- 
ter about  an  hour  I  lay  down  on  the  bed  and  went 
to  sleep,  till  they  brought  our  morning  coffee. 

"About  ten  we  walked  to  the  works  together. 
We  have  been  there  all  day  till  just  before  I  came 
to  fetch  you.  Upon  the  way  Emile  was  just  as 
moody  and  brusque  as  ever.  As  he  did  not  want 
to  talk  about  those  two  kindly  little  men,  I  thought 
I  would  try  another  tack,  and  I  began  to  discuss  a 
detail  of  our  invention.  It  is  an  improvement 
upon  what  we  have  already  done,  and  at  ordinary 
times  such  a  thing  would  never  fail  to  interest 
him." 

"And  didn't  he  rise  to  that?"  Ethel  asked. 

"Never  a  bit.  And  that  disturbed  mc  more 
than  ever,  for  it  is  so  unlike  him.     All  day  he  has 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  75 

been  the  same.  We  usually  go  to  dejeuner  to- 
gether at  a  little  cafe  close  to  the  works.  This 
morning  he  positively  refused  to  come  with  me, 
and,  when  I  asked  why,  he  insulted  me.  He  was 
like  a  bear  with  a  sore  head." 

"And  you  went  alone'?" 

"Yes,  and  I  have  been  alone  ever  since,  and 
have  been  brooding  over  the  position  and  got  my- 
self into  a  thoroughly  depressed  state  of  mind." 

"Well,  never  mind,  dear,"  Ethel  replied,  "get 
out  of  it  now.  How  good  this  omelette  is !  And 
the  wine,  too ;  really,  I  think  the  vin  ordinaire  here 
is  better  than  anywhere  else  in  Paris.  Cheer  up, 
old  boy,  because  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  ever}^- 
thing  is  going  to  come  right,  and  more  quickly  than 
you  have  any  idea  of." 

She  spoke  the  last  words  with  meaning,  and 
Basil  looked  at  her,  trying  to  read  her  face. 

"Have  you  got  something  at  the  back  of  your 
mind,  sweetheart^"  he  asked. 

She  nodded.     She  could  not  help  it. 

"There  is  something,"  she  said — "a  little  some- 
thing. I  cannot  tell  you  now,  because  it  is  not  my 
secret,  but  wait  and  see.     You  will  know  more 


76  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

before  long.  For  my  part,  I  feel  more  happy  and 
hopeful  than  I  have  been  since  our  engagement." 
For  a  moment  he  caught  something  of  her 
gaiety.  He  lifted  his  glass,  and  drank.  "To  the 
future,"  he  said,  but  the  momentary  animation 
flickered  out,  and  it  was  a  silent  and  sorrowful 
young  man  who  kissed  her  farewell  about  half- 
past  nine,  at  the  comer  of  the  street  in  which  was 
the  establishment  for  young  ladies  of  the  De- 
moiselles de  Custine-Seraphin. 


CHAPTER  V 

Gregory  arrived  at  his  hotel  in  the  Latin  Quarter 
about  ten.  Loneliness  oppressed  him,  and  he 
went  to  the  couple  of  attics  upon  the  top  floor 
tenanted  by  himself  and  Deschamps.  He  hoped 
that  the  latter  was  in,  and  in  a  better  mood.  He 
wanted  an  explanation  from  him,  and  he  was 
haunted  by  some  half -formed  fear  that  the 
Frenchman  knew  of  some  calamity  that  might  be 
about  to  overtake  them — that  something  had  gone 
wrong,  perhaps,  with  the  great  invention,  or  that 
their  positions  at  the  Societe  Generale  Electrique 
were  jeopardised. 

There  was  no  one  in  Deschamps'  room  as  he 
switched  on  the  electric  light,  so  he  crossed  the 
landing  and  entered  his  own. 

This  room  also  was  untenanted,  but  the  light 
was  full  on.  He  started,  for  it  could  not  have 
been  turned  on  by  him,  and  electric  lights  burning 
at  unnecessary  hours  were  viewed  with  great  dis- 

17 


78  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

favour  and  the  subsequent  result  in  the  monthly 
bill  by  the  hotel  proprietor.  Almost  immediately, 
however,  he  understood,  for  a  note  in  Deschamps' 
handwriting,  and  addressed  to  him,  lay  upon  the 
table. 

He  picked  it  up,  and  tore  open  the  flimsy  enve- 
lope, his  hand  trembling  as  he  did  so. 

For  some  reason  or  other  he  felt  strangely  ex- 
cited, and  he  experienced  the  feeling  that  some- 
thing is  about  to  happen  which  comes  to  everj^one 
at  certain  times.  The  note  was  quite  short.  It 
stated  that  Deschamps  had  gone  again  to  the  Rue 
Petite  Louise  to  visit  the  Camet  brothers,  and  told 
Basil,  in  terms  that  were  imperative,  to  proceed 
there  immediately  upon  his  return.  That  there 
might  be  no  doubt  whatever  of  Deschamps'  mean- 
ing, the  letter  concluded  by  saying,  "The  matter 
is  most  urgent.     I  can  say  no  more,  but  come." 

As  Basil  walked  the  considerable  distance 
towards  the  woods  quarter,  he  was  ill  at  ease  and 
also  in  a  bad  temper.  It  was  impossible  to  dis- 
regard such  a  summons,  but  he  saw  no  use  nor 
meaning  in  it,  while  it  seemed  to  him  almost  an 
impoliteness  to  trouble  the  kindly  entertainers  of 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  79 

the  night  before  so  soon  again.  He  found  his  way 
to  the  long,  narrow  street  of  the  wood-sheds  and 
wood-workers  without  much  difficulty,  only  once 
having  to  ask  the  way.  As  before,  the  street  was 
ill-lit,  and  perfectly  quiet,  though  this  time  he 
could  see  it  much  more  plainly  owing  to  the  ab- 
sence of  fog  and  the  light  of  a  watery  moon.  He 
entered  the  little  passage,  and  rapped  on  the 
counter.  Almost  immediately  that  he  had  done 
so  the  door  behind  flew  open  and  Brother  Charles 
came  out. 

The  little  man  was  apparently  delighted  to  see 
him.     He  was  cordiality  itself. 

"Monsieur  Deschamps  is  within,"  he  said. 
"Enter,  monsieur.     We  have  been  expecting  you." 

Greatly  wondering  what  this  might  mean,  Basil 
Gregory  passed  through  into  the  workshop,  where 
he  found  Edouard  Camet  and  Deschamps  sitting 
by  the  fire. 

On  this  occasion  one  of  the  principal  work- 
benches had  been  cleared  of  lumber,  and  a  white 
cloth  was  spread  upon  it,  with  a  salad  and  boned 
chickens  from  some  neighbouring  restaurant, 
flanked  by  several  bottles  of  that  execrable  sweet 


8o  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

champagne  beloved  by  the  unsophisticated  Paris- 
ian at  times  of  festival — the  Parisian  being  at 
once  the  most  accomplished  gourmet,  and  the 
worst  judge  in  Europe  of  sparkling  wines. 

Deschamps,  who  rose  with  his  hosts  as  Basil  en- 
tered, was  no  longer  surly  or  depressed.  On  the 
contrary,  Gregory  saw  at  once  that  he  was  in  a 
state  of  intense  excitement.  There  was  a  high 
colour  upon  his  swarthy  face,  and  the  big  black 
eyes  were  glittering. 

In  fact,  there  was  an  unusual  atmosphere  of 
excitement  about  everyone  present  in  the  work- 
shop, and  insensibly,  in  the  first  few  moments 
even,  it  began  to  communicate  itself  to  the  Eng- 
lishman. 

"We  were  waiting  for  you  to  begin  supper," 
said  Brother  Edouard  in  his  twittering  voice. 
"Afterwards  we  will  tell  you — what  we  have  to 
tell." 

Basil  was  not  hungry,  but  he  sat  down  with  the 
others.  Both  Deschamps  and  the  Carnets  ate 
quickly  and  said  very  little.  It  was  as  though 
they  wished  to  be  done  with  the  meal,  but  when 
the  first  bottle  of  champagne  was  opened  and  the 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  81 

sweet  wine  creamed  in  the  glasses  Brother  Charles 
rose  and  lifted  his  glass  on  high.  "To  the  suc- 
cess of  the  greatest  scheme  that  human  genius  ever 
evolved  I"  he  piped.  "To  the  ruin  and  overthrow 
of  that  vast  and  evil  power  whose  slaves  and  vic- 
tims we  have  been !"  With  a  sudden  gesture,  he 
drained  his  glass  and  flung  it  on  the  floor,  where 
it  crashed  into  a  hundred  pieces. 

Then  he  stood  there  trembling,  his  bird-like 
face  twisted  into  a  grotesque  mask  of  hatred, 
which  was  reflected  by  his  brother. 

Gregory  looked  at  one  and  the  other  with 
amazement  and  then  turned  to  Deschamps.  He 
saw  that  the  latter's  face  was  more  deeply  flushed 
than  before,  the  whole  expression  was  one  of 
quivering  eagerness  and  almost  ferocious  hope. 
Gregory  leant  back  in  his  chair  and  very  deliber- 
ately lit  a  cigarette. 

"I  do  not  want  to  be  unduly  inquisitive,"  he 
said,  in  a  quiet  and  measured  voice,  "but  if  one  of 
you  gentlemen  would  kindly  give  me  the  slightest 
inkling  of  what  you  are  talking  about,  and  why 
you  are  all  so  excited,  then  perhaps  I  shall  feel  a 
little  less  bewildered  than  I  do  at  the  moment." 


82  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

At  this  Deschamps  broke  into  a  torrent  of 
words. 

"My  friend,"  he  said,  "our  troubles  are  at  an 
end!  As  Monsieur  Charles  has  just  said,  one  of 
the  most  stupendous  schemes  that  has  ever  entered 
the  human  brain  has  come  to  me.  By  its  means 
we  shall  all  become  fabulously  wealthy  in  a  short 
time  if  all  goes  well." 

Basil  was  staring  at  his  friend,  wondering 
whether  he  had  taken  leave  of  his  senses,  when 
Charles  Carnet  interposed.  "We  shall  not  all 
become  wealthy,"  he  said.  "Edouard  and  I  have 
enough;  we  want  no  more.  You  will  become 
wealthy,  and  we  shall  have  our  revenge." 

"I  am  listening,"  said  Gregory  rather  stolidly. 

As  if  by  common  consent  the  other  three  rose 
from  the  table.  "Come  to  the  fire,"  Deschamps 
said,  speaking  now  in  a  low  voice,  "and  you  shall 
hear  everything." 

They  sat  round  the  fire  very  close  together,  and, 
looking  round  as  if  to  be  quite  certain  that  there 
was  no  one  lurking  in  the  recesses  of  the  work- 
shop, Deschamps  began: 

"Mon  amir  he  said,  putting  his  hand  upon 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  83 

Basil's  arm,  "we  are  going  to  take  a  journey,  you 
and  I." 

"A  journey'?"  Gregory  said. 

"To  Monte  Carlo,"  Deschamps  replied. 

Then  there  was  a  silence;  Basil  felt  his  brain 
whirling.  "What  do  you  mean?"  he  said  at 
length. 

"I  mean  this,"  Deschamps  answered,  "that 
fortune  is  within  our  grip  at  last,  that  we  can  now 
make  as  much  money  as  we  like,  enough  to  conduct 
all  our  experiments  and  get  out  perfect  models  of 
our  invention  to  place  before  the  world.  I  will 
explain. 

He  threw  away  the  cigarette  which  he  had  been 
smoking  and  began  to  outline  a  plan  so  novel,  a 
conspiracy  so  absolutely  without  precedent  in  the 
history'-  of  the  v/orld,  that  his  three  listeners  re- 
mained spell-bound. 

"Chance,  and  chance  alone,"  he  began,  "has 
placed  the  opportunity  for  the  most  sensational 
coup  of  modern  times  in  our  hands.  In  the  first 
place,  chance — the  Spirit  of  Fortune,  or  what  you 
will — led  us  to  this  room  in  which  we  are  sitting. 
The  Messieurs  Camet,   as  you  know,  have  for 


84  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

years  been  employed  in  making  roulette  wheels  for 
the  Casino  at  Monte  Carlo.  As  you  have  also 
heard,  they  have  resolved  to  give  up  their  occupa- 
tion. The  tragedy  which  has  saddened  their  lives 
has  been  directly  due  to  the  existence  of  the  great 
gambling  establishment.  Both  our  friends  would 
give  anything  to  be  revenged  upon  the  organisa- 
tion which  has  wrecked  their  hopes,  and  owing  to 
the  existence  of  which  their  so  beloved  nephew 
met  his  untimely  death." 

A  low  mutter  of  assent  broke  from  both  the 
little  Frenchmen. 

"Very  well,  then,"  Deschamps  continued,  "you 
have  wondered  at  my  abstraction  during  the  last 
twenty-four  hours.  I  could  not  speak  to  you.  I 
was  absorbed.  I  hardly  heard  anything  you  said. 
The  whole  forces  of  my  intellect  were  focussed 
upon  one  thought,  one  aim.  The  germ  of  an  idea 
came  to  me.  It  was  like  a  lightning  flash,  illu- 
minating with  sudden  splendour  the  dark  skies  of 
night.  The  flash  came  and  went,  but  the  germ 
of  the  idea  remained  behind.  Since  then  I  have 
been  working  unceasingly  at  it,  and  now  I  be- 
lieve I  have  it  perfected.     You,  yourself,  my  dear 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  85 

friend,  will  be  able  to  seize  on  any  flaw,  to  im- 
prove upon  my  original  idea.  Very  well,  then; 
I  came  to  our  friends  here,  and  told  them  that  I 
believed  I  could,  if  I  would,  deal  the  Administra- 
tion of  Monte  Carlo  an  almost  fatal  blow.  It 
was,  I  explained  to  them,  by  means  of  science, 
and  more  especially  of  your  and  my  new  inven- 
tion, that  this  could  be  done.  I  pointed  out  to 
them  that  it  would  require  their  co-operation.  I 
think  I  may  say" — here  he  looked  interrogatively 
at  the  Carnets — "that  directly  I  made  my  proposal 
they  agreed." 

"We  welcomed  it  with  joy,"  said  Brother 
Edouard  instantly.  "To  us  also  it  came  as  a 
lightning  flash,  illuminating  the  dark  and  showing 
the  word  'Revenge'  in  letters  of  fire  upon  the 
horizon  I" 

Basil  leant  forward,  deeply  interested.  As  yet 
he  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  what  was  coming. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  so  impressed  by  Deschamps' 
firm  and  confident  manner  that  hope  was  beginning 
to  rise  high  within  him,  and  an  excitement  to 
which  he  had  been  a  stranger  for  many  days,  be- 
gan to  flow  over  him  like  a  tide. 


86  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Moreover,  he  knew  Deschamps  so  well  that  he 
was  certain  that  this  was  no  vision.  The  French- 
man was  a  Southerner,  it  is  true,  given  to  pictorial 
flights  of  fancy  in  many  ways.  But  when  he  be- 
gan to  speak  of  any  matter  connected  with  science 
or  their  invention,  he  never  made  the  slightest 
overstatement.  Science  was  his  life  and  his  re- 
ligion. 

"As  yet,"  Deschamps  said,  "Monsieur  Edouard 
and  Monsieur  Charles  know  nothing  of  the  actual 
means  I  propose  to  employ.  I  am  going  to  di- 
vulge my  plan  in  such  a  way  that  they,  knowing 
nothing  of  electricity  and  its  powers,  will  be  able 
to  understand  my  project  in  every  detail.  I  shall 
not  use  any  technicalities  beyond  what  are  abso- 
lutely necessary.  But  you,  mon  ami^  will  under- 
stand everything  from  the  scientific  point  of  view, 
and  you  will  see  how  perfectly  feasible  and  likely 
of  success  is  what  I  propose  to  do." 

He  paused,  and  going  to  the  table,  poured  out  a 
little  water  into  a  glass  and  drank  it  off.  He 
did  not  sit  down  again,  but  walked  up  and  down 
a  measured  beat  of  four  yards,  talking  with  intense 
earnestness. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  87 

"You  know,  gentlemen,"  he  said  to  the 
two  wood-carvers,  "what  wireless  telegraphy 
means'?" 

"But,  yes,"  said  Brother  Charles,  "have  they 
not  just  installed  the  Marconi  system  in  the  Eiffel 
Tower ■?  Of  course,  we  know,  but  not,  I  think, 
more  than  any  ordinary  member  of  the  pub- 
lic." 

"Very  well,"  said  Deschamps.  "Now  I  must 
tell  you  that  Monsieur  Gregory  here  and  myself 
have  for  years  been  at  work  upon  a  system  of 
transmitting  messages  without  wires,  which,  we  be- 
lieve, and  indeed  are  certain,  surpasses  the  inven- 
tion of  Signor  Marconi  as  a  modern  battleship 
surpasses  an  ancient  wooden  frigate.  It  is  this 
system  of  ours  that  I  propose  to  employ  in  the 
secret  war  against  the  Administration  at  Monte 
Carlo.  By  its  means  we  shall  be  able  to  win  an 
enormous  sum  of  money  at  roulette.  We  shall 
be  able  to  win  exactly  how  much,  and  when,  we 
please.  Every  detail  is  perfectly  clear  in  my 
mind,  and  discovery  is  almost  im.possible  with 
the  precautions  I  shall  take.  You  must  re- 
member that  the  capital  of  Monte  Carlo  is  un- 


88  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

limited.     You  know  nothing  of  the  place,  Basil?" 

Gregory  shook  his  head. 

"Then,  pardon  a  short  digression,"  Deschamps 
continued,  looking  at  the  Carnets.  "The  gam- 
bling rooms  of  Monte  Carlo  pay  the  Prince  of 
Monaco  a  yearly  subsidy  of  eighty  thousand 
pounds  for  permission  to  carry  on  their  business 
in  his  territory.  There  are  no  rates  and  taxes  in 
Monte  Carlo,  the  Casino  pays  them  all.  Educa- 
tion is  free.  The  Casino  itself  is  a  glittering 
white  palace  upon  the  edge  of  the  Mediterranean, 
erected  at  an  enormous  cost,  and  decorated  with 
the  most  lavish  splendour.  Few  kings  have  such 
vast  halls  and  salons  in  their  palaces  as  those  in 
the  temple  of  the  Goddess  of  Chance.  The  Casino 
is  free  to  all  the  world,  though,  of  course,  the 
Administration  reserves  the  right  of  declining  ad- 
mission. The  gardens  that  surround  this  palace 
are  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world.  Sometimes, 
as  if  by  touch  of  an  enchanter's  wand,  the  thou- 
sand gardeners  steal  out  in  the  night,  and  in  the 
morning  vast  parterres  of  flowers,  which  had  been 
all  red  and  gold  as  the  sun  sank,  are  changed  to 
blue  and  white.     In  addition  to  this — and  the 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  89 

expenses  of  the  Principality  are  incalculable — the 
company  pays  a  revenue  to  its  shareholders  of  over 
twenty-five  million  francs  I" 

Basil  had  been  listening  with  absorbed  interest. 
He  started  now.  "Twenty-five  million  francs  I" 
he  said,  in  an  awed  voice.  "Clear  profit  after 
those  colossal  expenses?  A  million  English 
pounds  I" 

"Exactly,"  Deschamps  returned,  "and  I  have 
told  you  this  so  that  you  can  see  that  the  resources 
of  the  company  are  practically  unlimited.  The 
amount  of  their  funds  no  one  knows,  but  many  a 
national  bank  could  not  equal  it.  So  you  see,  the 
authorities  are  pledged  for  the  sake  of  their  own 
continuance  to  pay  any  player  his  winnings,  how- 
ever enormous  they  may  be.  There  have  been 
several  cases  of  players  quite  recently  winning 
sums  of  two  and  a  half  million  francs — a  hundred 
thousand  pounds  of  your  English  money.  But 
we" — ^here  his  voice  for  the  first  time  began  to 
tremble  with  excitement — "  we  can  win  whatever 
we  please!  And  now  to  the  way  in  which  it  is 
to  be  done." 

Deschamps  stopped  short  in  his  walk  up  and 


90  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

down.  He  leant  against  the  work-table  upon 
which  were  the  remains  of  the  supper. 

The  eyes  of  the  other  three  were  fixed  upon  him 
with  an  intense  regard. 

"You  understand,"  he  said  to  Basil,  "the  princi- 
ple of  roulette,  do  you  not'?" 

"Roughly,"  Basil  answered;  "the  little  ivory 
ball  about  the  size  of  a  large  marble  is  spun  as  you 
spun  it  the  other  night,  and  falls  into  a  numbered 
slot.  The  people  who  have  placed  their  money 
upon  a  square  of  the  table  with  a  number  corre- 
sponding to  that  of  the  slot  into  which  the  ball 
falls  are  the  winners  of  varying  amounts." 

"That  is  more  or  less  it,"  Deschamps  replied. 
"I  am  not  concerned  at  the  moment  with  anything 
but  the  bare  mechanical  operation.  The  whirling 
of  the  wheel  at  the  bottom,  the  opposite  course  of 
the  ball,  and  the  triangular  silver  stars  which 
break  it,  all  make  it  a  pure  matter  of  chance  into 
which  apartment  upon  the  wheel  the  ball  is  going 
to  fall.  It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  if  by  some 
means  the  player  could  determine  into  which  slot 
the  ball  is  to  fall,  he  would  have  the  bank  at  his 
mercy." 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  91 

"Precisely,"  Basil  said. 

"Very  well,  then.  It  is  a  means  by  which  this 
may  be  attained  that  I  have  discovered.  Of 
course,  you,  as  an  electrical  engineer,  can  easily 
see  that  a  roulette  wheel  might  easily  be  con- 
structed by  the  bank  by  which  it  could  control  the 
falling  of  the  ball  and  so  prevent  players  who  had 
backed  a  particular  number  from  winning.  This 
has  often  been  done  by  dishonest  people  who  run 
private  gambling  hells.  Upon  the  surface  ever^'- 
thing  appears  all  right,  but,  of  course,  an  expert 
examination  would  very  speedily  result  in  the  dis- 
covery of  the  secret  mechanism — generally,  by  the 
way,  electrical.  Wires  can  be  hidden  in  the  leg 
of  the  table  upon  which  the  wheel  stands,  and  con- 
trolled by  the  foot  of  the  croupier  who  spins  it. 
But  never  before — and  I  wish  you  to  keep  this 
point  most  carefully  in  mind — has  it  been  pos- 
sible for  the  player  to  control  the  wheel  in  ac- 
tion without  the  connivance  of  the  croupier  or 
the  bank.  Now  listen."  He  began  to  address 
himself  now  more  particularly  to  the  Carnet 
Freres. 

"The  first  detail  in  my  plan  is  that  the  little 


92  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

ivory  ball,  while  remaining  to  all  appearance  a 
solid  ball  of  ivory,  is  not  really  so.  It  will  con- 
tain a  core  or  heart  of  steel.  The  very  finest 
workmanship  alone  could  accomplish  this  with- 
out any  possibility  of  detection.  I  assume — am 
I  right  in  assuming? — that  our  friends,  Messieurs 
Charles  and  Edouard,  could  make  a  ball  or  balls 
of  this  description." 

The  two  little  men,  who  had  been  listening  with 
rigid  attention,  spoke  to  one  another  rapidly  for  a 
moment  or  two,  using  technical  terms  which  the 
others  could  not  understand. 

Then  Brother  Charles  looked  up.  "We  can  do 
it,"  he  said  proudly.  "It  will  be  difficult,  very 
difficult.  First  of  all,  there  is  the  weight  to  be 
considered,  for  the  ball  must  not  exceed  a  normal 
weight.  Then  there  must  be  a  special  quality  of 
ivory,  and  work  in  turning  and  hollowing  so  ex- 
traordinarily fine  and  delicate  that  perhaps  only 
one  of  the  Indian  or  Chinese  carvers  could  do  it  so 
that  the  operation  showed  no  trace.  I  am  cer- 
tain that  no  one  in  France  but  myself  and  my 
brother  are  capable  of  this  feat,  but  you  may  rest 
content — it  is  not  beyond  our  powers  I" 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  93 

The  little  man  concluded  with  quiet  pride,  and 
Deschamps  showed  unmistakable  relief. 

"I  was  certain  of  it,"  he  said,  "but,  naturally,  I 
had  some  little  anxiety.  Everything,  in  the  first 
instance,  depends  upon  that." 

"We  then  have  our  prepared  ball  or  balls — for 
a  whole  set  must  be  made.  The  next  point  is  the 
peculiar  construction  of  the  rotating  wheel  upon 
which  the  slots  are  fixed.  Then,  you,  Basil,  will 
immediately  understand,  but  I  must  explain  it 
carefully  to  our  friends,  they  will  have  to  work 
under  my  instructions,  and  with  material  which  I 
supply.  The  prepared  wheel  will  be  constructed 
quite  differently  from  the  ordinary  ones,  though  it 
will  look  exactly  the  same,  when  painted  with 
the  numbers.  Each  slot,  messieurs,  will  be  con- 
structed of  metal  varying  very  slightly  in  composi- 
tion. To  all  outward  appearance  the  metal  will 
be  just  the  ordinary  tin  amalgam  generally  em- 
ployed. In  reality,  as  far  as  the  metal  goes,  each 
slot  will  have,  so  to  speak,  a  personality  of  its  own 
— a  certain  power  of  receptivity  of  certain  in- 
fluences which  no  other  slot  has." 

He  stopped  for  a  moment,  and  suddenly  Basil 


94  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Gregory  rose  from  his  chair,  and  gave  a  great 
shout  of  excitement.  A  glimmering,  a  faint  glim- 
mering, of  the  stupendous  idea  had  come  to  him, 
and  he  trembled  all  over  with  excitement. 

The  two  little  men  were  no  less  excited  than  he, 
though  as  yet  they  were  in  the  dark. 

Deschamps  made  a  movement  with  his  hand, 
Basil  sat  down  again,  and  the  Frenchman  went  on 
speaking. 

"My  colleague  here,"  he  said,  "is  already  be- 
ginning to  grasp  the  idea.  In  a  very  few  more 
words  you  will  understand  it  also.  I  mentioned 
wireless  telegraphy  to  you  just  now.  I  also  told 
you  that  my  friend  and  I  had  improved  enor- 
mously upon  the  present  system,  though,  owing  to 
lack  of  money,  we  have  never  been  able  as  yet  to 
place  our  invention  upon  the  market  or  get  it 
recognised,  while  if  we  took  it  to  quarters  where 
it  would  be  appreciated  and  understood,  we  should 
be  robbed  of  nearly  all  the  profits,  as  has  hap- 
pened v/ith  many  another  inventor. 

"  Well,  then,  messieurs,  the  invention  of  my 
friend  and  myself — I  speak  purposely  in  non- 
technical terms — makes  it  possible  for  the  mys- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  95 

terious  electrical  power  which  sends  messages  over 
thousands  of  miles  of  space — the  Hertzian  waves 
in  short — to  penetrate  through  any  amount  of 
material  resistance  in  the  form  of  the  walls  of 
buildings,  or  barriers  of  any  kind.  Marconi  has 
already  accomplished  something  of  this;  we  have 
perfected  it.  Now,  in  wireless  telegraphy  it  is 
already  possible  to  'tune'  sets  of  instruments  so 
that  the  message  sent  at  one  end  of  the  transmitter 
will  only  be  received  at  the  other  by  a  similarly 
tuned  receiver,  this  preventing  the  message  being 
picked  up  by  other  receivers  as  it  flies  through 
space.  I  am  about  to  apply  this  principle,  greatly 
facilitated  by  our  invention,  to  the  slots  of  the 
roulette  wheel.  Each  slot  will  be  tuned  separately 
from  its  fellow.  Having  got  thus  far,  let  me  ex- 
plain to  you  that,  by  means  of  the  Hertzian  waves, 
the  operator  will  be  able  to  turn  a  slot  into  a 
temporary  magnet  of  low  power  at  any  moment 
he  desires.  That  is  to  say,  that  when  the  prepared 
wheel  is  being  used  upon  the  tables  at  Monte 
Carlo,  an  operator  with  his  instrument  may  be 
three  or  four  hundred  yards  away  in  the  upper 
room  of  a  neighbouring  hotel,  or,  if  necessary,  two 


96  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

miles  away  up  upon  the  mountains  of  the  Mari- 
time Alps,  and  will  be  able  to  turn  any  slot  he 
desires  into  a  magnet  for  just  as  long  a  period  as 
he  wishes  it  to  remain  so.  There  will  be  no  visi- 
ble connection  between  the  distant  operator  and 
the  wheel.  It  is  absolutely  impossible  that  the 
people  clustered  round  the  wheel  can  know  what 
is  going  on.  The  great  secret,  silent  power  of 
electricity  will  be  at  work,  and  yet  entirely  un- 
suspected and  unknown." 

He  paused  again,  and  triumph  dawned  upon  his 
face  as  he  saw  that  now  not  only  did  Basil  Gregory 
thoroughly  understand  the  plan,  but  that  the 
brothers  Carnet  also  had  grasped  the  idea.  Their 
faces  were  blazing  with  amazement,  their  bodies 
tense  and  rigid,  there  was  no  sound  in  the  work- 
shop but  that  of  his  own  voice. 

"The  rest  is  easy  to  explain,"  he  said.  "If, 
say,  at  a  given  moment,  the  slot  painted  seven  is 
converted  into  a  low-power  magnet  directly  the 
wheel  begins  to  revolve,  then,  as  a  natural  conse- 
quence, as  soon  as  the  velocity  of  the  ball  begins 
to  die  away,  and  the  attractive  power  of  the  mag- 
net, which  slot  number  seven  has  become,  proves 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  97 

greater  than  the  impelling  force  of  the  ball,  the 
ball  which  has  a  steel  core  will  fall  into  slot  num- 
ber seven. 

"You  will  observe,  then,  that  the  unseen  opera- 
tor any  distance  from  the  Casino  is  absolute  master 
of  the  play  at  the  particular  table  where  the  pre- 
pared wheel  is. 

"His  confederate  will  play  at  this  table.  He 
and  the  operator  will  carry  watches  that  are  abso- 
lutely and  utterly  reliable,  and  which  are  syn- 
chronised to  a  hundredth  second  of  time.  A 
course  of  play  is  determined  on.  A  sequence  of 
certain  numbers  is  agreed  upon  between  the  two. 
Let  us  say  that  the  player  enters  the  rooms  at 
twelve  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  secures  his  place 
at  the  special  table.  At  ten  minutes  past  twelve 
to  the  instant  it  is  agreed  that  number  seven,  let  us 
say,  is  to  receive  the  force  of  the  Hertzian  waves 
for  a  certain  definite  period.  As  a  usual  thing,  so 
rapid  is  the  paying  out  and  gathering  in  of  money 
at  the  tables  at  Monte  Carlo,  the  wheel  is  spun 
every  minute  and  a  half.  Of  course,  if  the  stakes 
are  very  high,  or  if  there  is  a  dispute,  a  coup  may 
take  a  little  longer.     That,  however,   is  a  fair 


98  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

working  average.  For  a  little  less  than  a  minute 
and  a  half,  then,  from  the  time  agreed  upon,  i.e., 
ten  minutes  past  twelve,  seven  will  remain  a  mag- 
net. For  that  particular  spin  seven  must  infal- 
libly prove  the  winner.  The  thing  can  be  re- 
peated over  and  over  again." 

"It  is  marvellous  I"  the  brothers  shouted  out  in 
chorus.  "It  will  be  impossible  to  detect.  Mon- 
sieur, you  are  the  greatest  mechanical  genius  the 
world  has  ever  seen !" 

It  was  a  great  moment  for  Emile  Deschamps. 
All  the  theatrical  instincts  so  deeply  implanted 
within  him  were  gratified.  To  watch  the  faces  of 
his  audience,  to  see  the  dawn  of  understanding  and 
admiration  as  he  talked,  had  been  to  him  like  cool 
water  to  one  in  the  desert. 

He  stood  still  now,  one  hand  upon  his  heart, 
and  bowed.  He  had  no  thought  of  mockery,  the 
gesture  was  perfectly  spontaneous  and  sincere. 
He  turned  to  Basil. 

"And  you,  my  friend,  what  do  you  think  of  it*?" 
he  asked. 

Basil  started.  He  had  been  thinking  furiously, 
and  the  question  came  unexpectedly. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  99 

"  It  is,  of  course,  extremely  brilliant,"  he  said. 
^'Naturally  I  can  see  that  even  more  readily  than 
our  friends  here.  I  don't  believe  any  brain  but 
yours,  Emile,  would  ever  have  thought  of  it. 
Properly  worked,  and  there  are  a  good  many  de- 
tails I  should  like  to  discuss  with  you,  it's  almost 
certain  the  scheme  will  succeed.     But " 

"Ah,"  Deschamps  burst  in,  "the  usual  English 
reservation!  The  invariable  'but'  of  caution! 
What  is  it  now,  you  cold-blooded  islander^" 

"Oh,  it  is  not  caution,"  Basil  answered. 
"Haven't  I  just  told  you  that  the  thing  must  suc- 
ceed with  a  few  modifications  upon  your  original 
idea?  It  is  the  morality  of  the  thing  I  am  think- 
ing of." 

Deschamps  had  sat  down.  He  jumped  up  now 
like  a  Jack-in-the-box.  ''Tiensr  he  cried. 
"Morality?     Morality?" 

"I  thought  you  had  forgotten  the  meaning  of 
the  word,"  Basil  answered  dryly.  "It  seems  to 
me — I  only  offer  the  opinion  for  what  it  is  worth 
— that  while  this  little  plan  is  about  as  alluring 
a  proposition  as  I  ever  heard,  one  of  the  most  ele- 
mentary problems  of  life  has  been  quite  lost  sight 


loo  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

of.  We  are  going  to  steal — to  put  it  quite 
frankly.  It  is  an  iridium-pointed,  hot-pressed, 
wire- wove,  jewelled-in-e very-hole  sort  of  steal,  I 
know,  but  it  is  a  steal  all  the  same,  isn't  it"?  I 
am  open  to  conviction,  of  course,  and,  by  the  way, 
if  anything  goes  wrong,  conviction  is  just  what 
will  occur.  We  have  a  little  poem  in  England 
which  sums  up  the  question  in  a  nutshell — 

He  who  prigs  what  isn't  his'n, 
When  he's  cotched  will  go  to  prison ; 

or,  to  put  it  in  simpler  form  still,  *the  penalty  for 
abstracting  quids  by  electricity  will  be  quod' — 
you  are  a  Latin  scholar,  I  believe,  Emile?" 

The  Frenchman  made  an  impatient  and  angry 
gesture  of  his  hands. 

"There  is  no  time  for  blague"  he  said,  "with 
your  quids  and  your  quods.  I  know  nothing  of 
your  piggish  English  play  upon  words.  Of 
course,  if  it  is  the  fear  of  discovery  that  deters  you, 
and  the  possibilities  of  arrest,  well " 

He  did  not  conclude,  but  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders, and  puffed  out  his  lips  with  a  peculiarly 
French  contempt. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  loi 

Basil  was  quite  unmoved.  "It  is  not  that,"  he 
said,  "as  you  know  very  well,  Emile.  I  would 
risk  anything  upon  any  chance.  Our  lives  at  the 
present  moment  are  very  like  two  puddings  in  a 
fog.  Prison  could  not  be  much  worse.  But  I 
do  not  quite  see  how  one  is  going  to  reconcile  this 
marvellously  ingenious  plan  of  yours  with  or- 
dinary morals.  There  have  been  lots  of  times 
when  you  and  I  have  wanted  a  bottle  of  wine  or 
a  packet  of  cigarettes  very  badly,  and  hadn't  the 
money  to  pay  for  them.  If  I  had  proposed  to 
you  to  take  a  bottle  of  chambertin  while  the  wine- 
merchant  was  not  looking — well  I" 

The  two  little  Frenchmen  had  been  listening 
with  keen  attention  to  this  dialogue.  Basil's 
English  irony  had  been  lost  upon  them,  but  they 
understood  the  main  lines  of  his  objections  well 
enough. 

It  was  Brother  Edouard  who  came  to  the 
rescue. 

"Permit  me  to  say  a  word,"  he  interrupted  in 
his  gentle,  high-pitched  voice.  "The  cases  of 
robbing  a  wine-merchant  and  the  Administration 
of  Monte  Carlo  have  not  the  slightest  analogy. 


102  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Your  premises  are  false,  Monsieur  Gregoire. 
This  organisation  at  Monte  Carlo  is  simply  a  soul- 
less machine  for  the  making  of  money  by  ex- 
ploiting one  of  the  baser  passions  of  men.  I  and 
my  brother — I  freely  confess  it — have  been  parts 
of  that  machine  for  years.  But  you  know  the 
sad  event" — his  voice  trembled  a  little — "which 
opened  our  eyes.  We  said  to  each  other,  'If  our 
hopes  in  life  have  all  been  utterly  swept  away  in 
an  instant  by  the  Casino  at  Monte  Carlo,  how 
many  other  homes  have  been  ruined,  young  lives 
sacrificed,  prospects  blighted?'  A  soldier  who 
assists  to  exterminate,  or,  at  any  rate,  to  harass 
and  injure  a  dangerous  and  unfriendly  tribe  of 
savages  is  generally  looked  upon  as  doing  a  fine 
and  meritorious  thing.  Nor  does  he  disdain  to 
take  the  pay  of  his  country  for  so  doing.  You 
and  Monsieur  Deschamps  will  be  in  exactly  the 
same  case.  You  will  be  seriously  injuring  the 
Casino.  It  may  be  that  when  the  idea  is  de- 
veloped roulette  will  become  impossible,  though 
that  is  only  a  side  issue,  and  also — here  you  must 
listen  to  me  carefully — you  are  not  proposing  to 
obtain  a  large  sum  of  money  for  the  mere  grati- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  103 

fication  of  low  pleasures,  to  acquire  a  soulless  ease 
and  comfort.  You  have  invented  something 
which  will  be  of  the  highest  benefit  to  mankind. 
Want  of  fortune  alone  prevents  you  conferring 
that  benefit  upon  the  world.  As  inventors,  it  is 
your  duty — at  least,  so  it  appears  to  me — to  take 
advantage  of  the  opportunity  which  the  genius 
of  Monsieur  Deschamps  has  provided.  No  one 
will  be  hurt  except  people  who  can  well  afford 
to  suffer." 

His  voice  had  gathered  strength  as  he  went  on, 
and  as  he  concluded  there  was  an  almost  prophetic 
note  in  it,  a  gravity  and  seriousness  of  conviction 
which  had  an  instant  effect  upon  Basil  Gregory's 
wavering  mind. 

He  thought  for  a  minute,  and  then  looked  up. 

"So  be  it,"  he  said.  "You  have  convinced  me, 
though  I  will  say  I  was  ready  enough  to  be  con- 
vinced. We  will  try  it.  Like  all  other  gam- 
blers, we  will  risk  everything  upon  a  single 
throw." 

As  if  by  common  consent,  they  all  rose  to  their 
feet. 

"And  now,"   said  Brother  Charles,   who  had 


104  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

hitherto  been  silent,  "let  us  form  ourselves  into  a 
committee  of  ways  and  means." 

Deschamps'  face  grew  pale.  "Mon  Dieu!"  he 
cried,  "fool  that  I  am !  I  have  been  carried  away 
by  the  splendour  of  the  prospect,  and  have  for- 
gotten the  most  essential  fact  of  all.  Our  friends 
here" — he  was  speaking  to  Basil — "can  prepare 
the  wheel  with  my  assistance.  But  how  about 
the  apparatus,  which,  as  you  know,  is  costly 
enough  for  ordinary  purposes'?  The  particular 
apparatus  I  shall  want  with  all  our  own  modifica- 
tions and  specialities  will  cost  about  five  thou- 
sand francs.  And  then  there  is  the  getting  to 
Monte  Carlo,  the  putting  up  at  an  expensive  hotel 
to  avoid  suspicion — for  the  Administration  has 
its  spies  and  detectives  everywhere.  It  may  be 
necessary  to  bribe,  a  thousand  emergencies  may 
occur,  which  only  money  can  overcome." 

He  dived  one  hand  into  the  pocket  of  his 
trousers,  and  withdrew  four  coins.  He  flung 
them  on  the  floor  with  a  curse. 

"Three  francs  fifty  I"  he  cried;  "three  francs 
fifty!  Basil,  I  am  a  fool  and  a  dreamer  I  You 
can  preserve  your  morality  unspotted,  after  all  I 


i'> 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  105 

Basil  looked  blankly  at  his  friend,  who  was 
now  limp  with  an  almost  ferocious  dejection  and 
self-contempt.     He  nodded  slowly. 

"Same  old  thing,"  he  said;  "we  ought  to  have 
expected  it.  We  are  stumped,  old  chap,  for  want 
of  three  or  four  hundred  pounds." 

An  odd  hissing  noise,  like  the  escape  of  steam 
from  a  very  small  pipe,  recalled  him  to  his  sur- 
roundings. The  brothers  Carnet  were  regarding 
the  two  young  men  with  pity.  "Ah  I"  said 
Brother  Charles,  almost  wringing  his  hands, 
"What  fools  these  men  of  genius  are,  Edouard! 
Messieurs !  Messieurs !  my  brother  and  I  will,  of 
course,  provide  the  funds.  Haven't  we  already 
told  you  that  we  are  quite  well-to-do  for  people 
in  our  position?  You  will  draw  on  us  for  any 
money  you  may  require.  Nor  must  you  spare  the 
francs.  This  is  a  great  affair,  conduct  it  greatly, 
and  you  will  earn  our  undying  gratitude." 

Once  more  the  volatile  Deschamps  was  trans- 
formed from  limp  dejection  to  painful  ex- 
citability. He  leapt  at  both  the  little  men,  and 
embraced  each  in  turn.  He  called  down  bless- 
ings upon  their  heads,  and  then,  in  an  instant, 


io6  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

assumed  the  manner  of  a  calm  business-like  man. 

He  took  a  fountain-pen  and  an  envelope  from 
his  pocket. 

"You  will,  of  course,  take  whatever  proportion 
of  our  winnings  you  think  fit,  gentlemen,"  he  said, 
"and  as  far  as  the  amount  of  the  winnings  is  con- 
cerned, you  have  only  to  say  the  word.  It  will 
be  as  well  to  make  a  note  of  the  terms  at  once, 
and  we  will  have  a  proper  agreement  drawn  out." 

The  Camets  looked  at  Basil  Gregory  as  much 
as  to  say,  "What  a  hopeless  person  this  Southerner 
is  I"  Basil,  far  quicker  than  Deschamps  to  un- 
derstand the  odd  little  men,  changed  the  subject  at 
once.  "Never  mind  about  that  now,  Emile,"  he 
said.  "Our  friends  have  very  kindly  offered  to 
advance  the  money  necessary  for  the  great  coup. 
We  had  now  better  go  into  other  details,  so  as  not 
to  lose  time.  Financial  affairs  can  be  arranged 
later." 

Deschamps  nodded.  "Very  well,  then,"  he 
said,  "let  us  recapitulate  what  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  be  done,  immediately.  In  the  first  place, 
you  and  I  must  give  up  our  positions  at  the 
Societe  Generale." 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  107 

Basil  started  at  this.  "Is  that  really  neces- 
sary*?" he  asked.     "Couldn't  we  get  leave?" 

Deschamps  shook  his  head.  "I  feel  almost  sure 
they  won't  give  us  leave,"  he  said.  "We  are  only 
members  of  the  rank  and  file,  remember.  But 
'nothing  venture,  nothing  have,' — we  must  re- 
sign." 

"Very  well,"  Basil  replied,  "we  will  give  them 
notice  to-morrow."  But  as  he  said  it  he  had  a 
curious  heart-pang  as  he  thought  of  Ethel,  and 
that,  if  anything  went  wrong,  he  must  resign  for 
ever  any  hopes  of  calling  her  his  own. 

"Now,  about  experiments  and  the  construction 
of  the  apparatus,"  Deschamps  continued.  "We 
must  have  a  workshop,  to  begin  with." 

"This  is  at  your  service,"  the  brothers  said 
eagerly. 

Deschamps  bowed.  "A  thousand  thanks,"  he 
said.  "Nothing  could  be  better  fitted  for  the 
purpose.  Here  we  shall  be  absolutely  secret. 
You  have  a  forge  and  many  appliances  which 
will  be  useful.  To-morrow  I  must  buy  other 
machinery  and  certain  tools.  Fortunately  you 
have  the  electric  light  here,  and  I  can  tap  one  of 


io8  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

the  plugs  for  all  the  current  that  I  shall  require 
for  experimental  purposes." 

Basil  snapped  his  fingers  as  if  an  idea  had  just 
come  to  him.  "By  Jove,  Emile !"  he  said,  "how 
on  earth  shall  we  manage  at  Monte  Carlo*?  We 
cannot  work  with  batteries.  First  of  all,  we 
could  never  get  them  into  the  hotel  without  be- 
ing seen,  and  even  if  we  did,  we  shouldn't  have 
enough  power." 

"You  don't  know  the  Principality,"  Emile  an- 
swered. "All  the  hotels  have  the  completest  in- 
stallation of  electric  light  possible.  It  will  be 
the  simplest  thing  to  tap  one  of  the  mains 
and  connect  it  with  our  new  portable  transfor- 
mer. We  can  get  exactly  what  current  we  re- 
quire." 

"Good,"  Basil  said,  realising  how  deeply  his 
friend  had  gone  into  the  technical  side  of  the 
great  coup. 

Edouard  Camet  spoke.  "If  you  will  come  here 
to-morrow  at  midday,"  he  said,  "having  already 
resigned  your  posts  at  the  Societe  Generale,  I  will 
have  drawn  a  sufficient  sum  of  money  from  the 
bank  to  enable  you  to  make  all  necessary  pur- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  109 

chases.  Then  we  can  go  ahead  as  fast  as  we 
like." 

"But  don't  forget  this,  brother,"  Charles 
Camet  interposed,  "our  new  wheels  must  be  dis- 
patched to  Monaco.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they 
are  expecting  them  immediately,  but  a  telegram 
saying  that  we  require  another  fortnight  will  put 
that  right.  We  have  had  to  take  a  little  extra 
time  before  now,  during  the  past  years.  A  fort- 
night, however,  is  as  much  grace  as  we  shall  be 
able  to  get  and  preserve  our  friendly  relations 
with  the  Administration.  Will  you  be  able 
to  do  all  that  is  necessary  in  the  construction 
of  the  apparatus  within  a  fortnight*?" 

"It  will  be  quick  work,"  Deschamps  replied, 
"but  it  can  be  done.  My  friend  and  myself  can 
construct  the  necessary  apparatus  for  sending  the 
waves,  and  we  can  also,  with  your  co-operation, 
prepare  the  wheel  and  tune  the  slots  for  the  re- 
ception of  the  vibrations." 

Then  Basil  spoke.  "Look  here,  Emile,"  he 
said,  "a  thought  strikes  me.  Of  course,  I  don't 
know  anything  about  the  Casino,  and  I  have  never 
been  to  the  South  of  France,  but  won't  it  look 


no  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

strangely  suspicious  if  we  win  day  by  day  at  the 
same  table?     Won't  they  change  the  wheel"?" 

"That  is  exactly  what  they  will  do,  monsieur," 
Edouard  Carnet  replied  to  him.  "Of  course, 
when  a  man  wins  a  large  sum  at  one  table  he  al- 
ways goes  to  the  same  table  to  play.  It  is  his 
lucky  table.  But  there  was  a  case  some  years 
ago  when  a  little  syndicate  of  players — by  means 
of  the  most  careful  calculations — noticed  that  the 
wheel  of  the  table  where  they  made  their  game 
had  a  slight  bias.  They  traded  on  the  fact  for 
several  days,  and  won  an  enormous  sum  of  money. 
It  was  one  of  our  wheels,  but  there  must  have 
been  a  flaw  in  the  wood,  or  we  had  not  allowed 
for  the  expansion  of  the  metal,  owing  to  the 
greater  heat  of  the  South.  At  any  rate,  as  a 
result,  the  wheels  have  been  constantly  changed 
ever  since." 

"Then,  how  can  we  carry  out  our  plan?"  Basil 
asked. 

"The  wheels  are  not  taken  away  entirely," 
Edouard  went  on;  "they  are  simply  changed  from 
table  to  table.  The  prepared  wheel  will  have 
some  distinguishing  mark  by  which  you  will  know 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  in 

it.  We  must  think  that  out;  it  must  be  some 
very  slight  thing — a  knot  in  the  wood,  a  mere 
scratch  on  the  outside,  would  do." 

A  dry  little  chuckle  came  from  Brother 
Charles. 

"We  are  getting  on  I  We  are  getting  on!"  he 
said,  with  a  grotesque  mirth.  "My  brother,  what 
is  to  prevent  us  preparing  three  wheels'?  They 
should  be  'tuned' — as  Monsieur  Deschamps  calls 
it — exactly  alike.  Each  will  be  marked  in  some 
way,  so  that  our  friends  can  distinguish  them  from 
the  unprepared  wheels.  There  are  twelve 
roulette  wheels  in  all  used  in  the  Salle  des 
Jeux." 

"Bienl"  Edouard  replied;  "your  brain  moves 
quickly.  By  this  means  our  friends  will  be  able 
to  move  from  table  to  table  as  they  wish." 

"And  I  would  suggest,"  Deschamps  broke  in, 
"that  we  do  not  play  for  more  than  a  week  in 
all.  In  a  week's  time  we  shall  be  able  to  win  an 
enormous  sum  of  money,  without  unduly  excit- 
ing suspicion.  Great  runs  of  luck,  I  have  ob- 
served, generally  last  for  about  seven  or  eight 
days.     If,  as  Monsieur  Charles  suggests,  we  move 


112  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

from  table  to  table,  a  week  should  be  sufEcient. 
We  can  go  away  with  enormous  sums,  and  no  one 
will  be  any  the  wiser." 

"And  another  thing,"  Edouard  Camet  said, 
"which  of  you  is  going  to  be  the  actual  operator 
of  the  telegraphic  instrument,  and  which  the 
player  at  the  tables'?" 

"Oh,  I'd  much  better  play,"  Deschamps  an- 
swered, "and  Basil  work  the  instrument." 

Both  the  Camets  shook  their  heads  at  this. 

"No,"  they  said  together,  "that  will  be  unwise. 
Monsieur  Gregoire  is  typically  English.  It  is  al- 
ways best  for  a  foreigner  to  make  these  great 
coups.  Moreover,  the  luck  of  the  English  and 
the  Americans  is  proverbial.  Monsieur  Gregoire 
must  be  thought  an  English  millionaire.  No  one 
thinks  it  strange  when  a  millionaire  wins  another 
million!  But,  to  safeguard  the  future,  it  would 
be  as  well  that  monsieur  were  disguised." 

Basil  shook  his  head.  "Disguised!"  he  cried. 
"Oh,  I  don't  like  that  idea  at  all!" 

"It  is  necessary,"  Edouard  Carnet  said  firmly; 
"but  all  that  you  have  to  do,  monsieur,  is  to  shave 
off  that  blonde  moustache,  darken  your  skin  a  lit- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  113 

tie,  and  wear  pince-nez.  It  is  only  ordinary  cau- 
tion, after  all.  When  you  return  with  the  spoils 
of  war  and  grow  your  moustache  again,  nobody 
will  ever  connect  you  with  the  winner  of  millions 
upon  the  Cote  d'Azur." 

"And  I  have  another  idea,"  twittered  Brother 
Charles,  his  little  face  beaming  with  joy.  "Mon- 
sieur Deschamps  shall  go  to  Monte  Carlo  as  the 
valet  of  Monsieur  Gregoire.  It  will  all  seem  so 
natural — the  assiduous  valet,  the  heavy  luggage, 
which  the  man-servant  must  guard!  You  see 
it?" 

The  situation  struck  Basil  as  humorous.  He 
threw  back  his  head  and  laughed  aloud. 
"Emile,"  he  said. 

Deschamps  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  thing. 
"Bden,  monsieur,"  he  answered. 

"Sit  down  at  the  table  and  teach  me  the  rules 
of  the  game  of  roulette  I" 


PART  II 


CHAPTER  VI 

Two  men  sat  alone  In  a  first-class  compartment  of 
the  Riviera  train-de-luxe. 

The  night  before  the  most  luxurious  train  in 
Europe  had  left  the  Gare  de  Lyon  at  Paris.  The 
night  had  been  bitterly  cold,  and  as  the  vast  ma- 
chine swung  out  of  the  station  all  the  suburbs  of 
Paris  and,  indeed,  the  plains  of  mid-France,  were 
seen  through  the  dark  windows  of  the  corri- 
dors to  be  covered  with  a  white  sprinkling  of 
snow. 

A  special  carriage  was  reserved  for  a  Monsieur 
Montoyer  and  his  valet,  and  the  two  persons  men- 
tioned upon  the  ticket  had  spent  the  whole  night 
in  the  luxurious  cabin,  with  its  beds  and  little 
tables,  talking  earnestly. 

Monsieur  Charles  Edouard  Montoyer  was  an 
athletic,  burly  looking  young  man,  dressed  in  the 
height  of  French  fashion,  clean-shaved,  dark-com- 
plexioaed,  and  wearing  goLd-rimmed  spectacles, 

"7 


ii8  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

which  only  partially  concealed  a  pair  of  blue  eyes 
which  seemed  oddly  at  variance  with  his  otherwise 
Southern  appearance.  His  hair  also  was  a  dead 
black,  and  in  certain  lights  it  had  an  almost 
metallic  lustre. 

The  valet  presented  no  very  extraordinary  ap- 
pearance, except  that  he  seemed  markedly  in- 
telligent and  alert.  His  black  hair  was  closely 
cropped  to  a  large  and  well-shaped  head.  His 
complexion  was  of  the  true  Southern  swarthy 
tint,  glowing  out  below  the  skin,  as  it  were.  He 
wore  a  small  black  moustache,  and  the  long  first 
finger  of  his  right  hand  was  deeply  stained  with 
the  juice  of  cigarettes. 

Once,  about  an  hour  after  the  start,  the  valet 
went  to  the  restaurant  car,  and  brought  back  two 
bowls  of  soup,  and  a  bottle  of  Pomard,  explaining 
to  the  waiter  who  gave  them  that  his  master  was 
very  hungry  and  one  tureen  would  be  insufficient. 
But  when  the  door  of  the  sleeping-car  was  locked, 
the  blinds  looking  on  the  corridor  drawn  down, 
the  table  set,  and  all  the  electric  lights  switched 
on,  a  spectator — had  there  been  one  there — would 
have  seen  with  some  surprise  that  master  and  man 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  119 

shared  the  meal  equally.  And  perhaps  he  would 
have  thought  it  a  touching  testimony  of  the 
theoretical  equality  of  Republican  France  that 
master  and  man  addressed  each  other  b}-  their 
Christian  names. 

In  short,  the  great  enterprise  was  begun,  Basil 
and  Emile,  their  apparatus  made,  their  plan  of 
campaign  concluded,  were  roaring  and  crashing 
through  France  to  the  fairy-like  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean. 

It  was  now  close  upon  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. The  blinds  of  the  sleeping-car  were  still 
drawn  upon  the  corridor  side,  but  the  two  men 
were  dressed.  Their  hand  luggage  was  strapped 
and  they  were  smoking  cigarettes. 

"In  a  moment  more,  Basil,"  said  Emile,  his 
voice  trembling  with  excitement,  ''in  a  moment 
more  you  shall  have  your  first  vision  of  the  South ! 
I  would  not  let  you  look  before  and,  indeed,  as  we 
went  through  Avignon  it  was  too  dark  to  see  much, 
but  Marseilles — my  beloved  native  cit)^ — is  the 
Gate  of  the  South.  You  will  see  little  of 
it,  as  within  an  hour  we  shall  be  pulling  out 
again  for  the  Cote  d'Azur,  but  you  will  see  some- 


120  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

thing;  you  will  at  least  breathe  the  enchanted  air!" 

Deschamps'  voice  was  most  powerfully  affected. 
For  a  moment  he  had  forgotten  the  enterprise  en- 
tirely. He  was  only  consumed  with  an  over- 
mastering eagerness  that  his  dearest  friend  and 
partner  should  breathe  with  him  that  subtle,  in- 
toxicating air,  and  realise  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life  what  the  South  means. 

There  was  a  long  grinding  of  the  brakes,  and 
the  train  stood  still.  Emile  drew  up  the  blinds, 
opened  the  door  into  the  corridor,  and  led  Basil 
to  the  end  of  the  car.  Then  they  stepped  down 
to  the  low  platform. 

They  had  left  Paris  in  sullen  bitter  winter 
weather.  Here,  early  as  it  was,  the  sun  was  shin- 
ing brilliantly  in  the  cool,  quiet  station.  Exactly 
facing  them  was  a  huge  stall  of  flowers,  masses 
of  purple  violets,  delicate  ivory-coloured  roses 
from  Grasse,  the  pale  golden  plumes  of  the 
mimosa. 

But  the  air!  the  air  was  the  thing!  So  warm 
and  sweet  it  was,  it  came  upon  them  with  such  a 
veritable  caress,  it  so  bathed  them  with  golden 
light  and  sweet  odours,  that  tears  started  into 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  121 

Deschamps'  eyes,  and  Basil  forgot  his  disguise. 

"How  wonderful !  how  wonderful !"  he  said  in 
English,  breathing  like  a  man  who  had  been  stifled 
all  his  life. 

'     And  that  was  their  first  glimpse  of  the  en- 
chanted country  to  which  they  had  come. 

Through  all  the  morning  until  mid-afternoon 
the  train  moved,  slowly  and  sleepily  now,  through 
scenes  of  loveliness  such  as  the  Englishman,  at 
any  rate,  had  never  dreamed  of.  Everywhere  the 
Mediterranean  gleamed  like  an  immense  sapphire, 
flecked  here  and  there  with  white  fire.  The  low 
cliffs  of  sandstone  were  crimson.  The  sky  was  an 
inverted  bowl  of  glowing  turquoise,  and  every- 
where tall,  feathery  palms  were  silhouetted 
against  it  in  brilliant  green.  And  there  were 
flowers,  flowers  everywhere!  Every  station  with 
its  familiar  name  was  full  of  flowers — Grasse, 
Cannes,  Nice,  Villefranche — there  were  flowers 
everywhere;  flowers,  exotic  trees,  and  great  white 
hotels  that  gleamed  jewel-like  in  terrace  after  ter- 
race from  the  sea  till  they  were  lost  in  the  high 
places  of  the  Maritime  Alps. 

And  then — at  last — Monaco,  a  few  tunnels  cut 


122  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

in  the  cliffs,  and  the  long,  low  station  of  Monte 
Carlo  at  last! 

During  the  whole  period  of  the  slower  journey 
along  the  seashore  Basil  Gregory's  excitement  had 
been  gradually  growing.  He  and  Deschamps  had 
talked  but  little,  but  both  of  them  had  been  ob- 
sessed by  the  great  idea  that  they  were  getting 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  world-famous  theatre  of 
their  colossal  enterprise. 

Monte  Carlo !  Monte  Carlo  I  The  words  had 
beaten  themselves  into  a  rythm  in  Basil's  brain,  a 
rythm  in  tune  with  the  regular  pulsing  of  the 
engine. 

They  were  to  stay  at  the  Hotel  Malmaison,  for 
the  brothers  Carnet  had  insisted  that  the  two 
young  men  should  lack  nothing,  and  that  Basil 
should  appear  to  be  a  person  of  great  wealth  and 
consequence.  There  was  to  be  no  hole-and-corner 
business  about  the  great  coup.  Suspicion  was  to 
be  averted  by  every  possible  means.  "J/  fait 
aller  en  regal^''  Brother  Charles  had  insisted,  and 
so  it  was  to  be.  Rooms  had  been  engaged  in  ad- 
vance, a  sitting-room  and  bedroom  for  Monsieur 
Charles  Edouard  Montoyer,  and  a  bedroom  for 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  123 

his  valet.  It  had  been  stipulated,  however,  that 
the  valet's  bedroom  should  be  at  the  very  top 
storey  of  the  hotel,  as  that  personage  suffered  from 
asthma. 

The  Malmaison  was  only  some  four  hundred 
yards  from  the  station,  and  in  consequence  some 
three  hundred  from  the  Casino.  They  drove  there 
in  the  waiting  omnibus,  however,  and  at  five 
o'clock  were  installed  in  their  rooms. 

It  was  a  little  difficult  to  account  for  two  large 
boxes  among  the  luggage,  of  extraordinary  heavi- 
ness, which  were  placed  in  the  sitting-room  of 
Monsieur  Montoyer.  But  the  ready  Deschamps 
in  his  role  of  valet  explained  that  monsieur  was  a 
great  student,  and  always  travelled  with  many 
books. 

"I  go  now,  mon  ami,''  Emile  said,  ''to  my  own 
room.  All  your  clothes  are  unpacked.  I  must 
not  stay  here  too  long  at  present.  I  shall  have 
to  meet  all  the  other  servants  and  gossip  with 
them,  but  I  will  come  at  seven  to  assist  you  to 
dress,  and  then  we  can  make  our  plans." 

Basil  was  left  alone  in  the  brightly  furnished 
sitting-room-.     He  looked  down  into  a  terraced 


124  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

garden,  brilliant  still  with  the  declining  rays  of 
the  sun.  Somewhere  near  by  a  band  of  guitars 
was  playing  accompanied  by  voices  as  sweet  and 
passionate  as  they. 

He  strolled  up  and  down  the  room  thinking 
deeply.  But  it  was  not  of  the  fairyland  in  which 
he  found  himself,  it  was  not  of  the  glories  he  was 
soon  to  witness,  it  was  not  even  of  the  great  hazard 
he  was  to  try — the  bold  and  reckless  bid  for  for- 
tune.    It  was  of  Ethel  he  was  thinking. 


CHAPTER  VII 

About  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  day  on 
which  Basil  Gregory  and  Emile  Deschamps  had 
arrived  at  Monte  Carlo,  another  train  had  pulled 
into  the  long  low  station  on  the  Mediterranean 
shore. 

This  train  was  very  different  from  the  huge, 
luxurious  machine  that  brought  the  adventurers  to 
the  City  of  Fortune  earlier  in  the  day.  It  was 
the  ordinary  slow  train,  the  third  class,  not  even  a 
rapide^  and  only  a  few  second-class  carriages  were 
included  in  its  make-up.  Moreover,  it  had  taken 
two  whole  days,  and  nights  in  its  journey  from 
Paris,  being  everywhere  shunted  aside  for  the 
rapides  and  trains  de  luxe  to  pass  through. 

From  this  train  of  poorer  people  two  English 
ladies,  quietly  dressed,  and  pale  and  stained  with 
travel  under  none  too  pleasant  conditions,  had 
descended. 

They  were  driven  at  once  with  their  trunks  to  a 

125 


126  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

modest  'pension  in  the  Rue  Grimaldi  in  Monaco, 
and  spent  some  hours  in  sleep. 

Ethel  McMahon  had  told  her  lover  in  Paris 
that  she  had  obtained  a  fortnight's  leave  of  ab- 
sence from  her  school,  had  saved  a  little  money, 
and  was  about  to  take  her  mother  to  Switzerland 
for  a  change  of  air. 

Basil  had  accepted  the  statement  implicitly, 
glad  to  hear  that  the  girl  he  loved  was  to  have  a 
short  respite  from  her  labours,  and,  for  his  own 
part,  finding  that  the  proposed  holiday  would  co- 
incide with  his  own  absence  from  Paris,  he  said 
nothing  of  his  plans.  So  it  had  been  arranged, 
and  the  two  lovers  were  mutually  ignorant  of 
each  other's  purposes  and  without  the  slightest 
idea  that  they  were  bound  for  the  same  destina- 
tion. Mrs.  McMahon  had  absolutely  refused  to 
allow  Ethel  to  communicate  a  word  of  their  proj- 
ect to  Gregory,  and  the  girl  was  all  the  more 
ready  because  by  now  she  was  thoroughly  infected 
with  her  mother's  enthusiasm,  and  was  absolutely 
convinced  in  her  own  mind  that  they  were  to 
gain  a  small  fortune  at  the  tables. 

How  splendid  it  would  be  to  come  to  Basil  and 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  127 

to  tell  him  that  they  could  be  married  at  once  I 
That  funds  for  the  launching  of  the  great  inven- 
tion were  forthcoming,  that  all  was  to  end  as 
happily  as  some  old  song! 

About  six  o'clock  Ethel  went  into  her  mother's 
room.  The  rest  had  refreshed  her.  Her  eyes 
were  glowing  with  excitement,  and  with  her  long 
hair  falling  over  her  dressing-gown  she  seemed 
the  personification  of  radiant  hope. 

"Now,  what  are  we  to  do,  mother*?"  she  said 
excitedly.     "How  do  you  feel*?" 

The  older  woman  was  seated  in  the  one  arm- 
chair the  little  bedroom  of  the  pension  boasted,  and 
was  anxiously  scrutinising  a  bundle  of  faded  pa- 
pers covered  with  figures  and  bold  masculine  hand- 
writing. 

"It  is  certain,  Ethel !"  she  said.  "I  have  been 
going  through  your  father's  figures  for  the  hun- 
dredth time.  I  am  sure  it  can't  fail.  You  know 
he  only  invented  this  particular  system  just  before 
he  died,  and  we  never  had  an  opportunity  to  try 
it  properly." 

Ethel  nodded,  "I  feel  just  as  you  do,  mother, 
dear,"  she  answered.     "It  can't  fail.     But  what 


128  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

are  we  to  do?  Are  you  thoroughly  rested*?" 
"I  feel  in  better  health,"  the  old  lady  answered, 
"than  I  have  felt  for  years.  Excitement  would 
keep  me  up  if  nothing  else  would,  but,  as  it  is,  I 
have  no  trace  of  fatigue.  What's  the  use  of 
spending  the  evening  in  this  dull  pension  with 
these  third-rate  people,  for  such  of  the  guests  as  I 
have  seen  are  rather  a  seedy-looking  lot,  and 
Madame  de  Bonville  is  just  the  ordinary  Southern 
Frenchwoman  who  keeps  a  place  of  this  sort? 
No!  We  will  dress,  have  dinner,  and  take  a  cab 
to  the  Casino.  There  will  be  no  difficulty  about 
obtaining  our  tickets  for  this  evening.  We  shall 
have  to  renew  them  each  day,  until  we  have  been 
here  for  some  time — if,  indeed,  it  is  necessary  to 
remain  here.  After  a  week  or  two  they  give  you 
a  ticket  for  a  month,  but  I  don't  suppose  we  shall 
need  that."  , 

"Then  we  are  to  begin  to-night!"  Ethel  cried, 
a  flush  mounting  in  her  cheeks  and  her  voice  ring- 
ing with  anticipation. 

The  elder  lady  smiled.  "We  will  not  begin 
the  system  to-night,"  she  answered.     "That,  I  do 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  129 

think,  would  be  unwise.  We  will  take  a  louis  or 
two  and  get  a  place  at  one  of  the  tables,  if  we  can, 
and  just  see  what  happens.  I  want  you  to  get 
accustomed  to  a  scene  which  will  seem  extraor- 
dinarily strange  to  you.  We  will  take  it  that  we 
are  merely  reconnoitring  this  evening,  and  begin 
serious  play  upon  the  morrow.  Dinner  is  at  half- 
past  seven,  so  go  and  prepare  yourself,  my  child, 
and  then  come  and  help  me." 

Ethel  left  the  room  and  crossed  the  passage  to 
her  own,  singing  for  sheer  lightness  of  heart.  Al- 
ready the  beauty  of  the  South  had  caught  hold  of 
her,  and  such  glimpses  of  it  as  she  had  seen  only 
intensified  her  mood.  In  her  innocence  she  had 
not  the  slightest  misgiving.  She  would  have 
laughed  to  scorn  anyone  who  had  told  her  that 
there  was  a  chance  of  losing  the  little  unexpected 
capital  that  had  come  to  them  from  the  lottery. 

Dinner  at  the  pension  de  Bonville  was  the  or- 
dinary polyglot  affair.  An  English  major — no 
regiment  specified — some  stolid  Germans,  three 
shrill-voiced  American  girls,  and  some  nondescript 
and  rather  haggard  looking  young  men  made  up 


130  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

the  company.  Doings  at  the  Casino  during  the 
day  were  compared  and  discussed.  The  little 
cards,  printed  in  red  and  black,  which  are  pro- 
vided by  the  Casino  authorities  for  recording  the 
play,  and  pricked  each  time  the  wheel  is  spun, 
were  handed  about,  and  in  this  atmosphere,  so 
familiar  to  her  in  the  past,  old  Mrs.  McMahon 
seemed  like  a  changed  being.  She  talked  with  the 
rest,  in  English  or  fluent  French;  she  was  like 
some  old  war  horse  once  more  snuffling  the  breeze 
of  battle,  and  Ethel  was  no  less  interested  and 
entranced,  though  her  knowledge  of  roulette — for 
none  of  the  pensionnaires  seemed  to  indulge  in  the 
more  expensive  trente-et-quarante — was  purely 
theoretical. 

After  dinner  the  major  gallantly  offered  to 
escort  the  ladies  to  the  Casino  and  to  obtain  their 
tickets.  Shortly  afterwards,  muffled  in  opera 
cloaks,  for  between  eight  and  nine  is  often  the 
coldest  hour  of  the  day  on  the  Riviera,  the  three 
walked  up  the  steep,  winding  way  towards  the 
Palace  of  Chance. 

A  full  moon  hung  in  the  sky;  everywhere  were 
brilliant  illuminations;  the  air  as  it  proved  was 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  131 

not  at  all  cold  upon  this  night,  but  soft  and  odor- 
ous of  flowers. 

The  gardens  of  the  Casino  were  like  enchant- 
ment to  Ethel  McMahon.  It  was  indeed  a  scene 
from  the  ''Abrabian  Nights."  The  tall  palms 
clicked  faintly  in  the  breeze  with  a  sound  like  dis- 
tant castanets.  The  electric  lights  shone  down 
upon  enormous  beds  of  flowers  which  everj^where 
studded  the  lawns.  Faint  music  was  heard  on 
every  side,  and  gaudily  painted  and  luxurious 
automobiles  flitted  noiselessly  along  the  polished 
roadways. 

Here  was  the  great  Hotel  de  Paris,  its  long 
fagade  glowing  with  colour,  full  of  the  wealthiest 
people  in  the  world,  dining  very  differently  from 
the  way  in  which  the  major  and  his  new  friends 
had  dined  in  the  Rue  Grimaldi.  Beyond,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  square,  were  the  gardens  of  the 
Metropole,  and  the  glass  Cafe  de  Paris  at  its  side 
winked  and  glittered  like  a  gigantic  topaz. 

'That,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  McMahon,  point- 
ing to  a  modest  looking  restaurant  in  an  arcade, 
"that  is  Ciro's." 

Ethel's  sense  of  humour  was  tickled  by  the  calm 


132  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

patronage  of  the  information.  She  knew,  of 
course,  that  she  was  looking  upon  the  most  fa- 
mous restaurant  in  the  whole  world,  but  her 
mother's  tone  amused  her. 

And  then,  in  a  moment,  she  had  no  thought  but 
one. 

Before  her  was  a  magnificent  building  of  white 
marble  with  many  steps  leading  to  a  wide  en- 
trance, glistening  against  the  background  of  dark 
sky,  spangled  with  golden  stars. 

Mrs.  McMahon  clutched  her  daughter's  arm. 
"There!"  she  said,  almost  in  an  awed  whisper. 
"Now  you  see  it  for  the  first  time.  That  is  the 
Casino!" 

For  a  moment  all  three  were  silent.  The  spirit 
of  chance,  the  terrible  fever  of  the  gambler  was 
in  their  blood,  and  even  the  tough  old  major,  an 
habitue  of  every  gambling  hell  in  Europe,  shared 
for  a  moment  the  emotion  of  his  companions  as 
they  surveyed  the  supreme  Temple  of  Chance. 

They  went  up  the  steps,  Ethel  alert  to  every- 
thing she  saw,  and  turned  into  a  long  office  to 
the  left,  rather  more  like  a  small  bank  than  any- 
thing else. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  133 

Two  or  three  civil,  quickly  glancing  French- 
men, in  black  frock  coats,  were  standing  in  this 
room  before  the  counter.  Ethel  was  conscious  of 
a  quick  all-embracing  scrutiny  from  three  pairs 
of  dark  eyes,  she  heard  her  name  spoken  in  French 
by  one  of  the  officials,  and  shortly  afterwards  two 
purple  cards,  bearing  the  mystic  words: 

"Cercle  des  Etrangers, 
Valahle  pour  un  jour," 

and  with  their  names  written  upon  the  back  in 
thin  clerkly  script,  were  handed  to  them. 

From  there,  into  a  vestibule  where  cloaks  were 
exchanged  for  metal  discs  with  a  number  upon 
them,  and  then  in  their  evening  frocks,  but  still 
wearing  their  hats,  the  two  ladies  passed  with 
their  cavalier  into  the  Atrium. 

The  huge  hall,  with  its  galleries,  marble 
columns  and  tesselated  floor,  its  gleaming  lights  in 
the  roof,  and  its  little  groups  of  people  dotted  here 
and  there  under  the  galleries  or  in  the  centre  space, 
reminded  Ethel  of  a  dance  she  had  once  attended 
in  England  at  the  magnificent  town  hall  of  a  great 
Northern  city.     Everyone  was  in  evening  dress, 


134  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

everyone  talked  animatedly,  new  arrivals  kept 
constantly  pouring  in.  But  at  one  end  of  this 
enormous  hall,  where  the  huge  marble  pillars  clus- 
tered more  thickly,  was  a  series  of  great  swing 
doors  of  an  abnormal  height,  doors  which  con- 
stantly opened  noiselessly  and  closed  again.  And 
round  the  doors  were  innumerable  officials  in  their 
long  frock  coats,  standing  there  watching  and 
waiting  as  the  votaries  of  Chance  pressed  in- 
wards to  the  very  sanctum  of  the  Temple. 

Mrs.  McMahon  nodded.  "Come,  Ethel,"  she 
said  in  a  voice  that  was  positively  hoarse  with 
excitement,  "the  rooms  are  in  there ;  let  us  go." 

The  two  ladies  walked  up  the  long  hall,  pre- 
sented their  cards  to  an  official  who  glanced  at 
them  and  bowed,  and  then  one  of  the  great  doors 
swung  open  and  they  entered.  Although  it  was 
early  yet,  the  rooms  were  fairly  full. 

Ethel  found  herself  in  an  enormous  salon  of 
great  height,  and  with  a  polished  parquet  floor. 
It  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  an  immense  ball- 
room in  some  royal  palace.  The  walls  were  cov- 
ered by  huge  pictures  let  into  the  gilded  panelling, 
separated  from  each  other  by  pilaster  after  pilaster 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  135 

of  gold.  The  ceilings,  also,  where  electric  lights 
glowed  brilliantly,  were  painted,  and  the  general 
effect  was  one  of  almost  overpowering  magnifi- 
cence. Beyond  this  huge  salon  she  saw,  under  an 
immense  archway,  there  was  another  and  even 
larger  one  crossing  it  at  right  angles,  and  beyond 
that  still  another.  The  size  and  splendour  of 
the  place  made  her  catch  her  breath  and  dazzled 
her  eyes.  "How  wonderful!"  she  whispered  to 
her  mother. 

Her  next  impression  was  that  she  was  in  some 
church  I  Despite  the  gorgeous  decoration  cer- 
tainly not  in  the  least  ecclesiastical,  the  size  and 
shape,  the  curious  hush  and  silence  that  pervaded 
everything,  helped  the  impression.  There  was 
only  the  very  lowest  murmur  of  conversation  per- 
ceptible. Women  in  astonishingly  gorgeous  toi- 
lets, with  gold  purses  hanging  from  their  wrists 
by  jewel-studded  chains,  moved  slowly  up  and 
down  the  parquet  floor  with  a  rustling  of  skirts. 
The  air  was  full  of  mingled  perfume  and  sug- 
gested that  odour  of  incense  in  a  cathedral. 

As  all  these  impressions  crowded  into  her  mind, 
the  girl's  eyes  became  more  used  to  the  surround- 


136  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

ings,  and  she  saw,  at  intervals  under  the  high 
dome-like  roof,  long  tables  were  set,  each  one  as 
long  as  two  billiard  tables.  There  were  four  of 
them  in  this  first  salon,  and  many  more  stretched 
away  in  the  vista  of  brilliance.  The  air  was  quite 
clear,  nobody  was  smoking,  and  she  could  see 
everything  very  distinctly. 

Around  each  table  was  a  thick  cluster  of  people, 
men  and  women,  almost  entirely  hiding  it  from 
view. 

She  turned  to  the  table  nearest  her. 

Around  it,  without  any  intervals,  people  were 
sitting  in  chairs.  Behind  them  stood  other  people, 
at  some  tables  two  deep.  Above  the  tables  were 
suspended  huge  lamps  with  green  shades — like  the 
lights  over  a  billiard  table,  though  not  so  bril- 
liant. 

"Why,  they  are  oil  lamps !"  Ethel  said  in  a  low 
voice  to  her  mother.  "How  strange  and  anti- 
quated I" 

Mrs.  McMahon  smiled. 

"If  they  had  electric  lights  immediately  over 
the  tables,"  she  said,  "or  even  gas,  some  of  the 
gangs  of  bad  characters  who  infest  Monte  Carlo 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  137 

would  find  means  to  cut  the  pipes  or  wires,  and  in 
the  confusion  anybody  could  take  what  money  he 
pleased."  She  clutched  her  daughter's  arm 
tightly.  "Child,"  she  said,  in  an  impressive  voice, 
"at  any  one  of  these  tables  at  the  present  moment, 
lying  about,  unprotected,  in  notes  and  gold,  there 
is  at  least  fifty  thousand  pounds!" 

At  that  moment  the  major  drew  their  attention 
to  the  fact  that  at  a  table  immediately  ahead  of 
them  there  was  a  little  stir  and  movement. 

A  very  tall  and  handsome  young  man  had  risen 
from  his  chair.  His  face  was  a  little  flushed  and 
his  eyes  sparkled,  while  he  tried  in  vain  to  conceal 
the  smile  of  pleasure  and  excitement  upon  his  lips. 
Several  of  the  other  people  at  this  table,  who  all 
appeared  to  know  him,  rose  also  and  began  to 
congratulate  him  in  low  voices. 

"That  is  the  Archduke  Theodore,"  the  major 
said  in  a  husky  whisper.  "He  is  a  cousin  of  the 
Tsar.  For  the  last  week  he  has  been  winning 
enormous  sums,  and  apparently  he  has  done  so 
again  to-night.  His  pockets  are  simply  bulging 
with  notes  I" 

Mrs.  McMahon  looked  significantly  at  Ethel. 


138  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Then  she  saw  her  chance.  ''Come,"  she  said, 
*'we  can  sit  down  at  this  table.  This  is  a  very 
fortunate  chance."  They  went  to  the  table  and 
found  two  chairs  unoccupied,  slipping  into  them 
quickly  in  the  momentary  diversion  created  by  the 
Archduke's  success,  and  for  the  first  time  Ethel 
McMahon  sat  actually  a  guest  of  the  unknown 
goddess  of  Fortune,  and  about  to  woo  her. 

To  the  girl's  unaccustomed  eyes  the  scene  was 
bewilderingly  strange.  The  long  expanse  of 
green  baize  cloth  stretched  away  on  either  side  of 
her.  It  was  marked  with  numbered  squares  and 
triangles,  while  at  one  end  were  two  huge  dia- 
monds of  red  and  black  in  either  corner.  She 
faced  a  row  of  people,  men  and  women  in  correct 
evening  costume,  save  that  the  women,  like  her- 
self, wore  the  large  hats  which  are  de  rigueur  in 
the  Casino.  Jewels  gleamed  bewilderingly  almost 
everywhere.  Exactly  opposite  her  was  a  woman 
who  was  simply  plastered  with  diamonds,  and  yet 
next  this  gorgeous  vision  with  the  painted  face 
and  laughing  eyes,  with  a  king's  ransom  round  her 
throat  and  in  her  hair,  sat  an  elderly  yellow-faced 
woman  in  a  black  dress  and  without  a  single  orna- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  139 

ment — more  quietly  and  even  shabbily  dressed 
than  Mrs.  McMahon  herself.  There  were  two 
fresh-faced  English  boys,  who  looked  like  soldiers, 
there  was  an  enormous  black-bearded  Bulgarian, 
with  eyes  like  black  velvet  and  hands  like  fat 
claws. 

And  all  these  people,  on  the  green  baize  before 
them,  had  wads  of  notes  or  piles  of  gold,  save 
only  the  old  lady,  before  whom  were  only  a  few 
five-franc  pieces — the  minimum  stake  allowed  at 
Monte  Carlo. 

And  on  the  numbers  themselves  money  was  al- 
ready beginning  to  be  placed  from  every  part  of 
the  table.  Sometimes  the  people  pushed  it  them- 
selves on  the  chosen  numbers,  sometimes,  when 
they  were  too  far  away,  they  gave  it  to  one  of  the 
silent  croupiers  who  sat  round  among  the  people 
and  pushed  the  coins  to  the  destined  spot  with 
their  long  india-rubber-tipped  rakes. 

Dividing  the  long  table  in  the  centre  was  the 
wheel  itself,  and  the  croupier  in  charge  of  it  was 
already  fingering  the  ivory  ball.  Behind  him,  on 
a  higher  seat,  sat  the  official  in  charge  of  all  the 
others  engaged  at  this  table,  and  from  his  lips 


140  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

came  the  occasional  croak  of  the  famous  "Faites 
vos  jeux,  messieurs:  faites  vos  jeux." 

Ethel  had  three  golden  louis  in  her  purse.  It 
was  all  the  money  that  they  had  brought  with 
them. 

Her  mother  had  told  her  that  beginners  nearly 
always  won  the  first  time  they  played — a  very 
common  superstition  among  gamblers,  and  one 
which,  for  some  reason  or  other,  seems  to  be 
amply  justified. 

"What  shall  I  do,  mother?" 

"Do  whatever  you  like,"  Mrs.  McMahon  an- 
swered quickly.  "I  mustn't  influence  you  or  it 
will  spoil  the  luck." 

Ethel  hesitated,  and  as  she  did  so  the  croupier 
swung  the  capstan  and  spun  the  ball. 

A  low,  humming  whirr  broke  the  silence. 

"Quick!  quick  I"  whispered  Mrs.  McMahon, 
"make  your  stake  or  it  will  be  too  late." 

Hardly  knowing  what  she  did,  Ethel  pushed 
her  three  louis  on  to  the  green  cloth,  and  as  she 
did  so  the  ball  began  to  rattle  on  the  diamond- 
shaped  pieces  of  silver  at  the  side  of  the  bowl,  and 
the  croupier  called  out  sharply,  "Rien  ne  va  plus^* 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  141 

announcing  that  no  more  stakes  could  be  put  upon 
the  table. 

Ethel  had  pushed  her  three  golden  louis  exactly 
upon  the  edge  of  the  line  which  divided  six  num- 
bers, from  13  to  18,  unconsciously  played  what  is 
called  a  transversale  simple. 

If  any  of  these  six  numbers  turned  up  she  would 
win  five  times  her  original  stake.  And  now — it 
all  passed  in  a  few  seconds — the  ball  was  rattling 
among  the  compartments,  clicking  like  a  pair  of 
castanets.  There  was  a  final  click  as  it  fell  into 
the  slot,  the  croupier  put  out  his  finger  and  stopped 
the  capstan,  announcing  the  number — "Rouge — 
dix-huit!'' 

Red  had  turned  up,  but  with  that  Ethel  had  no 
concern  as  she  had  not  backed  the  colour,  but  18 
had  won,  though  for  a  moment  she  did  not  realise 
it. 

Then  followed  what  to  her  was  an  extraordi- 
nary scene.  The  long  rakes  of  the  croupiers  shot 
out  from  every  part  of  the  table,  threading  their 
way  in  and  out  among  the  masses  of  gold,  silver 
and  bank  notes  with  extraordinary  rapidity  and 
the  most  delicate  manipulation. 


14^  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

A  small  fortune  was  swiftly  swept  away  into 
the  bank  until  the  table  was  comparatively  bare. 
It  was  all  done  with  the  precision  of  a  machine, 
without  a  single  mistake,  and  hardly  was  it  com- 
pleted when  the  stakes  of  those  who  had  won 
were  being  added  to  in  a  golden  shower. 

It  takes  a  croupier  at  Monte  Carlo  a  whole  year 
to  learn  his  business,  but  when  he  has  learnt  it  no 
juggler  upon  the  stage  can  provide  a  more  startling 
exhibition.  Coins  flew  from  rapidly  moving 
hands  in  a  continuous  stream,  as  if  liquid  gold  was 
being  squirted  from  a  hose.  No  single  coin  rolled 
off  its  appointed  square,  but  fell  flat  and  motion- 
less within  an  inch  of  the  stake  at  which  it  was 
aimed.  And  now  the  rakes  were  pushing  money 
towards  the  fortunate,  not  gathering  it  in  any 
more,  and,  almost  ere  eager  or  indifferent  hands 
had  gathered  up  what  Fortune  had  sent  them, 
stakes  were  again  being  spread  over  the  board  for 
the  next  coup.  To  Ethel,  who  had  not  in  the 
least  known  what  had  happened,  there  suddenly 
came  a  shower  of  gold  falling  just  before  her  upon 
her  original  three  louis. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  143 

She  stared  at  it  bewildered,  and  the  big  Bul- 
garian opposite  smiled  at  her  ignorance. 

Not  so  Mrs.  McMahon.  "That  is  yours, 
Ethel,"  she  said;  "that  is  yours.  You've  won, 
after  all."  And  as  if  in  a  dream  the  girl  drew 
the  glittering  pile  towards  her.  Fifteen  louis,  and 
her  own  three  coins  back  again!  Fifteen  louis! 
More  than  thirteen  English  pounds — come  to  her 
as  if  by  magic  in  less  than  a  minute;  her  own,  her 
very  own  to  do  as  she  liked  with. 

"I  can't  believe  it!"  she  whispered  to  her 
mother.  "It  can't  be  true — all  this — more  than 
a  quarter's  salary  in  a  minute !" 

Old  Mrs.  McMahon  was  trembling  with  ex- 
citement, but  there  was  triumph  in  her  voice. 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  in  those  very  tones  of 
calm  superiority  which  she  had  used  when  the 
lottery  ticket  had  at  last  turned  up  trumps,  "this  is 
nothing.     What  did  I  tell  you !" 

"What  shall  I  do  now?"  was  Ethel's  only  an- 
swer. "Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  do  noth- 
ing." 

Mrs.  McMahon  caught  at  the  word  with  the 


144  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

true  gambler's  instinct.  "My  dear,"  she  said, 
"put  one  of  those  louis  upon  zero." 

There  was  a  croupier  three  or  four  seats  away 
from  the  girl.  She  leant  forward,  being  now  a 
little  more  accustomed  to  what  she  was  doing, 
'''Zero^  sHl  vous  plait^  monsieur^^  she  said,  tossing 
the  coin  to  him. 

"£;2  plein^  mademoiselle?''''  he  asked. 

Ethel  turned  to  her  mother.  "What  does  he 
mean?"  she  said.  Mrs.  McMahon  interposed. 
"Oz/2,  en  plein,"  she  replied  to  the  man.  "You 
see,  Ethel,  it  is  rather  unusual  to  stake  a  coin  upon 
a  single  number,  because  you  have  thirty-five 
chances  against  you.  Most  people  do  what  you 
did  just  now — cover  several  numbers  and  be  con- 
tent with  smaller  winnings.  But  you  said  'noth- 
ing,' and  it  may  be  an  omen." 

Again  the  ball  spun,  and  now,  in  full  conscious- 
ness of  what  was  happening,  Ethel  knew  excite- 
ment so  fierce  and  keen,  so  utterly  overpowering 
and  absorbing,  that  it  burned  within  her  like  a 
flame,  and  frightened  her  by  its  intensity. 

Her  coin  was  the  only  one  upon  zero,  which  is 
the  bank's  number,  for  when  it  turns  up  all  the 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  145 

stakes  upon  the  board  are  taken  by  the  bank,  ex- 
cept those  placed  upon  red  or  black,  or  the  other 
even  chances. 

Dame  Fortune  was  very  kind  to-night,  for  with 
a  slight  emphasis  the  croupier  at  the  wheel  called 
out  "Zero,"  and  several  people  within  her  vicinity 
turned  to  look  with  envy  or  amusement,  as  the 
case  might  be,  at  the  beautiful  girl  who  had  alone 
staked  upon  the  big  white  "O." 

They  paid  her  in  notes  this  time,  and  Mrs.  Mc- 
Mahon  leant  back  in  her  chair  with  a  gasp. 
*Tool  I  Fool  that  I  was,"  she  whispered,  her 
.hands  clasping  and  unclasping  themselves.  "You 
had  the  money ;  you  might  have  put  on  the  maxi- 
mum of  nine  louis,  and  you  would  have  won,  my 
dear,  you  would  have  won,  and  you  would  have 
won  6,300  francs — £252!" 

"But,  mother,"  Ethel  whispered  back,  "I  have 
won  seven  hundred  francs  already,  and  three  hun- 
dred with  the  first  spin,  that  is  a  thousand  francs 
— almost  my  year's  salary  at  the  school !" 

"You  have  been  very  fortunate  "  said  the  old 
lady.     "And  now  let  us  go." 

"Let  us  go,  mother?     No,  look;  they  are  be- 


146  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

ginning  to  spin  again.     Let  me  try  once  more^" 

Mrs.  McMahon  gathered  up  the  gold  and  crisp 
notes  of  the  Bank  of  France  and  placed  them  in 
her  chain  purse. 

"My  dear,"  she  replied,  "I  am  almost  as  keen 
as  you  are  to  go  on,  but  let  us  be  content  with  our 
great  good  fortune.  We  shall  have  all  the  more 
money  to  play  with  when  we  begin  upon  the  sys- 
tem to-morrow." 

They  vacated  their  seats,  which  were  im- 
mediately occupied  by  people  who  had  been  stand- 
ing behind  them,  and  moved  slowly  through  the 
great  hall  towards  the  doors.  By  this  time  the 
rooms  were  thronged  with  people  of  all  nationali- 
ties. 

The  wealthiest  millionaires  of  London,  Paris 
and  Vienna  rubbed  shoulders  with  well-dressed 
scoundrels  known  to  the  police  of  all  three  capi- 
tals. There  was  a  reigning  king  present — a  tall, 
elderly  man  with  a  long  white  beard — half  the 
nobilities  of  Europe  were  represented.  The  most 
expensive  and  extravagant  toilets  to  be  found  any- 
where in  the  world  at  that  hour  were  seen  on 
either  side,  and  yet  there  was  a  proportion  of 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  147 

the  players  as  poor  in  worldly  goods  as  Ethel  Mc- 
Mahon  and  her  mother  themselves;  retired  army 
men  in  whom  the  gambling  fever  burned  and 
would  burn  until  their  death,  young  spendthrifts 
who  had  come  to  ^pend  their  all  upon  a  last  chance, 
financial  defaulters  who  hoped  by  one  smile  of 
the  goddess  Fortune  to  restore  money  which  was 
not  theirs,  and  to  yet  preserve  their  honour  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world. 

And  through  this  motley  and  brilliant  crowd — 
the  strangest  crowd  in  Europe,  in  the  strangest 
place — Ethel  and  her  mother  moved  as  if  in  a 
dream. 

In  the  mind  of  the  old  lady  a  fierce  and  feverish 
greed  flared  like  a  naphtha  lamp.  In  the  mind 
of  the  girl  there  was  but  one  thought,  crystallised 
into  a  name — Basil !     Basil !     Basil ! 

They  were  near  the  end  of  the  last  salon  and 
coming  up  to  the  long  swing  doors  when  Ethel 
started  violently  and  half  stopped. 

Standing  at  one  of  the  tables,  within  two  or 
three  yards  of  her,  was  a  tall,  well-built  man  in 
evening  dress.  His  back  was  towards  her,  and 
there  was  something  so  absolutely  familiar  in  the 


148  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

shoulders,  the  poise  of  the  stranger,  that  she 
gasped. 

For  a  moment  she  thought  she  saw  Basil 
Gregory  again — dear  Basil,  who  was  far  away  at 
the  electric  light  works  in  Paris. 

Then  the  stranger  made  a  half  turn.  He  was 
clean  shaved,  his  complexion  was  swarthy,  his  hair 
was  black.  He  was  dressed  also  in  the  height  of 
the  French  fashion. 

No !  It  was  not  Basil,  though  even  now  there 
was  something  strangely  reminiscent  of  her  lover 
to  the  girl's  eyes. 

With  a  sigh,  she  passed  out  of  the  Atrium  with 
her  mother.  They  got  their  cloaks  and  walked 
slowly  down  the  hall  to  the  Condamine.  The  air 
was  "all  Arabia."  A  huge  moon  rode  high  in  the 
heavens  and  washed  the  Mediterranean  with 
silver.  The  flowers  of  the  gardens  sent  forth  an 
overpowering  perfume — the  night  was  sweet  and 
dear. 

"Basil!    Basil!    Basil!'' 

"...  To-morrow,  my  dear,  we  will  get  prop- 
erly to  work  on  the  system.     To-morrow !" 


CHAPTER  VIII 

It  was  six  o'clock  on  the  following  evening. 

In  a  tiny  room  high  up  in  the  Hotel  Malmaison, 
above  the  servants'  quarters,  and  on  the  roof,  in- 
deed— for  the  valet  of  Monsieur  Montoyer  was 
asthmatic  and  must  breathe  the  freshest  air  pos- 
sible— Emile  Deschamps  was  standing. 

The  blinds  were  drawn,  the  room  was  lit  by 
candles  stuck  in  bottles,  and  presented  the  air 
more  of  a  workshop  than  a  bedroom. 

The  bed  was  littered  with  pliers,  coils  of  in- 
sulated wire,  strips  of  thin  india-rubber,  and  a  tube 
of  vulcanised  paste  for  making  joints.  Upon  a 
large  mahogany  table  close  to  the  window  stood 
a  complicated  apparatus. 

At  one  end  there  was  a  battery  of  Ley  den  jars, 
then  came  the  intricate  induction  coil  upon  a 
polished  stand,  its  brass  terminals  glittering  in  the 
light  of  the  candles.  Beyond  was  the  interrupter 
magnet  and  beyond  that  again  the  stout  "seven- 
sixteens"  wire  which  led  to  the  electric  light  cas- 

I4Q 


ISO  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

ing  in  the  wall,  where  the  hotel  current  had  been 
tapped  to  take  the  place  of  a  dynamo. 

Upon  that  part  of  the  table  where  the  inter- 
rupter magnet  was,  there  was  an  apparatus  which 
in  some  degree  resembled  the  keyboard  of  a  type- 
writer. No  letters  were  on  these  keys  however. 
They  bore  numbers  only,  from  one  to  thirty-six, 
with  the  addition  of  a  nought  to  represent  zero. 

Deschamps,  in  list  slippers,  was  walking  nerv- 
ously up  and  down  the  room.  Perspiration  shone 
upon  his  face.  His  eyes  had  a  fixed  introspective 
stare.  He  was  obviously  in  a  state  of  the  highest 
possible  tension. 

Up  and  down  the  room  he  paced,  like  some 
caged  animal,  and  every  now  and  again  he  rolled 
a  cigarette,  lit  it,  and  inhaled  a  few  whiffs  of 
pungent  blue  smoke,  and  threw  it  away.  Now 
and  then  he  poured  himself  out  a  cup  of  strong 
coffee  from  a  little  cafetiere  which  stood  upon  the 
mantelshelf.  On  the  hearth  burned  a  small  glow- 
ing fire  of  the  mountain  wood  and  fir  cones  which 
are  used  upon  the  Riviera,  and  beside  it  stood 
a  soldering  "iron"  of  copper,  a  file,  and  a  bottle 
of  zinc  chloride  solution. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  151 

Deschamps  looked  at  his  watch. 

"Basil  is  late,"  he  muttered  to  himself,  mopping 
his  brow  as  he  did  so  with  a  very  dingy  handker- 
chief.    ''Mon  Dieu^  if  only  this  were  over  I" 

He  resumed  his  walk,  thinking  deeply,  check- 
ing off  each  incident  of  the  great  adventure,  the 
great  fight  of  science  against  the  precautions  and 
wariness  of  the  most  complete  and  cunning  or- 
ganisation in  Europe. 

The  plans  of  the  partners  had  been  altered  and 
modified.  As  the  preparations  continued  in  Paris 
and  the  scheme  was  discussed  a  thousand  times, 
and  with  an  infinity  of  detail  which  crystallised 
more  and  more  into  definiteness,  the  most  impor- 
tant thing  that  was  at  length  determined  on — 
and  the  Carnet  brothers  had  been  in  thorough 
agreement — was  that  play  should  only  last  for 
one  night.  The  confederates  had  thought  that 
phenomenal  winnings,  protracted  over  two  or 
three  days,  would  inevitably  give  rise  to  suspicion. 
These  suspicions  would,  in  all  human  probability, 
be  absolutely  wide  of  the  real  mark.  But,  at  any 
rate,  they  would  be  certain  to  result  in  the  wheel 
at  the   table  where  Monsieur  Charles  Edouard 


152  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

Montoyer  made  his  colossal  coups  being  changed 
for  another. 

It  was  resolved,  therefore,  that  Basil  should 
play,  with  the  aid  of  the  unseen  electric  influences, 
for  one  evening  only.  The  whole  thing  had  been 
worked  out,  and  it  had  been  found  that  it  would 
be  easy,  if  nothing  went  wrong,  for  him  to  win  an 
enormous  sum  even  within  a  few  hours.  Directly 
that  was  accomplished  Deschamps  would  pack  his 
apparatus  and  return  to  Paris.  Basil  would  re- 
main at  Monte  Carlo  for  a  few  days  and  venture 
a  few  small  sums  to  avoid  suspicion.  After  that 
he  would  rejoin  his  friend. 

There  was  a  low  knock  at  the  door,  an  interval 
of  silence,  and  then  five  more  distinct  taps. 

Deschamps  knew  that  Basil  was  without,  and 
he  quietly  unlocked  the  door  and  let  in  his  friend. 

Basil,  tall,  foreign  looking,  and  in  the  most 
scrupulously  chosen  evening  dress,  entered  the 
dingy  little  bedroom  with  its  litter  of  machinery 
and  tools.  The  door  was  locked  behind  him  and 
the  partners  were  alone  together. 

Deschamps  started.  "Mon  Dieu!"  he  said, 
"your  sang  froid  is  admirable.     You  are^— how  do 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  153 

you  call  it*? — cool  as  a  cucumber.  Froid  comme 
un  concomhre.  Look  at  me;  I  tremble  all  over, 
moir 

Basil  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "What  is  the 
use*?"  he  said  briefly.  "I  have  been  nervous 
enough  up  to  the  present,  but  now  the  moment  has 
arrived  I  have  just  got  to  keep  cool.  The  biggest 
strain  is  on  me,  and  if  I  fail  now  all  our  plans 
are  over  and  it  means" — he  threw  out  his  hands 
with  a  foreign  gesture — "well,  we  won't  talk  of 
what  it  means." 

"You  are  marvellous !"  said  the  excitable  little 
Frenchman.  "You  have  no  tremor,  no  compunc- 
tion." 

Basil  shook  his  head.  "I  am  strung  up  to  go 
through  with  it,"  he  answered,  "and  take  what 
comes — fortune  or  prison.  As  for  compunction,  it 
seems  to  me  a  good  deed  to  rob  the  proprietors  of 
this  hell  if  one  can,  considering  all  the  stories  I 
have  heard  during  the  few  hours  I  have  been  here, 
and  the  evil  passions  I  have  seen  displayed  on  all 
sides.  And,  moreover,  we  do  it  for  the  sake  of 
science,  to  confer  an  inestimable  benefit  on  the 
world!" 


154  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

"Bien"  Deschamps  answered.  "Now,  have 
you  got  the  card  absolutely  safe*?  Let's  compare 
it  with  mine  for  the  last  time." 

From  out  of  his  pocket  Basil  drew  an  oblong 
slip  of  card.  Upon  it,  written  in  a  cypher  in- 
vented by  himself  and  Deschamps,  in  which  they 
had  perfected  themselves  during  the  last  week  or 
two,  were  a  series  of  numbers.  Above  each  num- 
ber was  marked  the  time — 9:5,  9:15,  etc.,  etc." 

They  went  through  the  cards  together  finding 
them  to  correspond  in  every  detail. 

"And  now  for  the  watches,"  said  Deschamps. 
From  a  kit  bag  in  the  comer  of  the  room  he  pro- 
duced a  leather  case,  containing  two  handsome 
gold  chronometers.  "I  have  kept  them  there  un- 
til now,"  he  said,  "in  order  that  they  might  not 
become  magnetised  by  the  electric  work  I  have 
been  doing." 

With  the  utmost  care  and  nicety  he  adjusted  the 
timepieces  so  that  they  did  not  vary,  one  from  the 
other,  by  a  single  second.  Then  he  gave  one 
chronometer  to  Basil,  and  returned  the  other  to 
the  portmanteau. 

"I  have  been  playing  all  the  day,"  Basil  said. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  155 

"with  the  hundred  and  fifty  louis  we  reserved  for 
that.  Sometimes  I  lost,  sometimes  I  won.  But 
I  spread  my  money  about  with  supreme  indiffer- 
ence. Always  I  put  down  a  maximum  stake,  and 
I  played  upon  a  number.  Of  course,  I  lost  many 
times,  but  I  am  sure  I  gave  the  desired  impression 
to  the  croupiers  at  our  table  where  the  marked 
wheel  is,  that  I  was  a  wealthy  gambler  indifferent 
as  to  whether  I  won  or  lost.  Towards  the  end 
I  had  a  stroke  of  luck.  I  had  put  nine  louis  on 
7,  and  7  turned  up.  So  that  I  won  6,300  francs. 
I  had  heard  that  the  rule  forbidding  all  tips  to 
the  croupiers  had  been  recently  abrogated;  so  that 
I  feed  the  men  in  my  neighbourhood  magnificently. 
I  shall  get  a  seat  at  our  table  all  right  if  I  am 
punctual  when  the  Casino  opens  for  the  evening 

play." 

"And  what  are  you  going  to  do  now?"  Emile 
asked  anxiously.     "Will  you  stay  here  with  me'?" 

"I  don't  think  so,  mon  ami^'"'  Basil  returned. 
"We  have  worked  out  every  possible  detail.  The 
more  we  talk  about  it,  the  more  nervous  we  shall 
become.  I  shall  go  to  my  room,  have  a  little  fish 
and  a  single  glass  of  wine,  and  then  stroll  round 


156  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

the  gardens  in  the  fresh  night  air  until  it  is  time  to 
go  in."  He  held  out  his  hand.  "Good  luck,  old 
fellow!" 

Deschamps  grasped  it  and  nodded,  too  full  of 
emotion  and  excitement  to  answer. 

Then  Gregory  quietly  left  the  room  and  de- 
scended to  his  own 

As  he  walked  down  the  passage  he  heard  the 
click  of  the  lock  being  shot  into  its  place  and 
knew  that  Deschamps  would  be  alone  with  his 
machinery  till  midnight. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Into  the  glittering  rooms  Basil  Gregory  strolled. 

He  had  left  the  Hotel  Malmaison  but  five 
minutes  before.  The  metal  check  for  his  light 
coat  and  opera  hat  was  in  his  waistcoat  pocket, 
and  as  he  walked  slowly  up  the  Atrium,  smoking 
a  cigarette,  he  seemed — even  in  an  environment 
where  some  of  the  most  important  people  in  the 
world  congregate — a  very  distinguished  person  in- 
deed. 

As  he  came  up  to  the  doors  quick-eyed  officials 
in  their  black  frock  coats — carrion-crows  people 
have  called  them — ^made  their  bows  and  pushed 
open  one  of  the  great  cedar  portals. 

Already  the  word  had  gone  round  that  this  tall 
and  cool  gentleman  was  an  unknown  millionaire, 
who  was  pleased  to  amuse  himself  for  an  hour  or 
two  at  the  tables. 

Basil  entered.  People  were  still  dining.  The 
rooms  were  full — they  always  are  full — but  of  the 

157 


158  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

ordinary  and  hungry  crowd  who  do  little  more 
than  venture  a  few  francs,  and  hardly  dare  take  a 
chair  at  any  table  when  one  is  vacant. 

Basil  sauntered  up  to  the  right  hand  table  in 
the  large  central  salon.  Some  people  call  this 
table  the  "suicides'  table,"  others  give  that  sinister 
designation  to  another.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Basil 
found  a  chair  and  sat  down — on  the  left  of  the 
croupier  who  spins  the  wheel  and  his  colleague 
who  sits  behind  him  on  a  higher  chair  and  directs 
the  whole  operations  of  the  table. 

Basil  sat  down,  took  out  his  watch  and  placed  it 
upon  the  space  of  green  baize  before  him.  Then 
he  drew  twenty  or  thirty  gold  coins  from  his 
pocket,  and  a  couple  of  five  hundred  franc  notes. 

The  official  who  sat  above  the  man  who  turned 
the  wheel  smiled  down  at  the  newcomer.  It  was 
a  slack  time.  The  table  was  half  deserted,  the 
rush  of  the  diners  had  not  yet  begun. 

Basil  took  out  his  cypher  card  and  placed  it 
carefully  behind  a  little  rampart  of  gold  coins. 

The  croupier  spun,  and  before  the  "Rien  ne  va 
plus'''  was  uttered  Basil  had  shoved  his  usual  max- 
imum of  nine  louis  upon  number  3 — sitting  as 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  159 

he  did  close  to  the  wheel  which  divided  the  two 
long  tables. 

Twenty-eight  turned  up.  Basil  saw  his  money 
raked  away,  with  the  few  other  stakes  that  were 
adventured,  with  a  broad  smile. 

No  one  could  possibly  have  noticed  the  quick 
glance  he  gave  at  his  watch.  But  that  glance 
signified  to  him  that  for  the  next  five  minutes 
number  "11"  would  be  certain  to  win. 

He  put  the  maximum  upon  number  1 1 . 

He  glanced  again  at  his  watch,  as  the  croupiers 
began  to  croak  their  "Faites  vos  jeux^''  and  gazed 
moodily  round  the  table,  which  was  now  begin- 
ning to  fill  up.  At  that  moment — a  supreme  mo- 
ment to  him — ^he  was  conscious  of  no  particular 
emotion  at  all. 

When  asked  about  it  afterwards  by  a  certain 
intimate  friend  he  always  said,  "Really,  I  felt 
nothing  whatever." 

The  weary  yellow-faced  slave  of  the  wheel  did 
his  duties. 

All  the  money  upon  the  table,  at  that  moment, 
was  upon  even  chances,  upon  the  dozens,  the 
transversales^  or  the  columns.     No  single  person 


i6o  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

had  played  direct  upon  a  number — a  thirty-five  to 
one  chance. 

The  big  triangles  of  red  and  black  at  the  far 
end  of  the  table  were  both  piled  with  gold  and 
notes,  the  borders  of  several  numbers  were  covered 
with  adventurous  stakes. 

There  was  a  swift  "click"  as  the  ball  went 
home. 

Number  ii  had  turned  up. 

Basil  Gregory  had  the  impulse  to  rise  from  his 
seat  and  go  striding  up  and  down  those  glittering 
halls,  hugging  his  secret,  spurning  those  other 
players  who  knew  nothing. 

Everything  had  occurred  exactly  as  he  had 
planned  with  Emile  Deschamps.  At  the  precise 
moment  arranged  between  them  the  wireless  mes- 
sage had  come  to  the  spinning  ball  and  it  had 
fallen,  as  it  was  directed,  obedient  to  the  unseen 
and  unsuspected  powers  of  science. 

He  drew  towards  him  six  thousand  three  hun- 
dred francs — two  hundred  and  fifty  two  English 
p>ounds  I 

He  looked  at  his  watch  again.  The  next  slot  in 
the  wheel  that  was  to  be  magnetised  was  33.     But 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  161 

it  was  not  yet  time.  It  liad  been  arranged  that  he 
was  to  lose  occasionally  in  order  to  divert  sus- 
picion 

He  placed  the  maximum  of  nine  louis  upon 
zero.  To  his  consternation,  zero  won.  Again  he 
received  the  enormous  sum  of  six  thousand  and 
odd  francs.  He  leant  back  in  his  chair,  out- 
wardly indifferent  and  calm,  but  throbbing  in 
every  nerve  and  pulse  with  wild  excitement.  It 
was  true  then! 

A  few  hundred  yards  away,  in  the  little  bed- 
room on  the  roof,  Emile  Deschamps  was  pressing 
key  after  key  with  absolute  precision.  And  as  he 
pressed  the  little  spinning  ball,  flung  from  the 
hand  of  the  croupier,  must  perforce  obey  the  in- 
visible power  that  vibrated  through  the  air 

That  he  had  won  upon  zero — when  he  meant  to 
lose — seemed  only  a  minor  incident  in  the  riot  of 
his  progress. 

The  one  man  in  the  crowded  halls  of  that  palace 
— the  one  and  only  man — who  could  control  For- 
tune herself,  he  sat  there  outwardly  cold  and  im- 
passive, while  his  mind  and  nerves  were  torn  and 
wrenched  as  by  opposing  forces. 


i62  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

He  was  now  more  than  five  hundred  pounds  to 
the  good,  and  as  yet  he  had  only  played  one  coup 
of  the  many  agreed  upon  by  the  secret  code. 

Already  the  people  at  the  table  were  glancing  at 
each  other  and  at  the  impassive  young  man  who 
staked  a  maximum  each  time,  and  had  already 
won  twice  en  plein — so  unprecedented  a  thing  to 
do. 

He  was  a  Russian  prince,  it  was  whispered. 
His  French  was  so  perfect — though  it  was  not 
absolutely  the  French  of  a  Frenchman — that  the 
whispering  people  round  the  table  thought  he 
could  be  none  other  than  a  Russian.  That  he  was 
English  never  occurred  to  anyone,  for  no  English- 
man speaks  French  as  Basil  Gregory  spoke  it. 

The  wheel  was  turning  again,  and  everyone 
watched  to  see  what  the  unperturbed  figure  by  the 
croupier  would  do. 

This  time,  with  a  glance  at  his  cypher  card,  and 
also  at  his  watch,  Basil  backed  red  and  not  a 
number. 

Each  number  in  the  wheel  has  Its  correspond- 
ing colour,  red  or  black,  and  it  was  as  easy  for  him 
to  win  on  an  even  chance  as  it  was  upon  a  chance 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  163 

of  thirty-five  to  one.  He  backed  red,  and,  far 
away  at  the  top  of  the  Hotel  Malmaison,  Emile 
Deschamps  pressed  the  key  which  magnetised  the 
slot  18  in  the  wheel  upon  the  green  table — 18 
being  a  red  number. 

Basil  placed  the  maximum  upon  red — that  is, 
two  hundred  and  forty  pounds. 

Red  turned  up.  He  had  now  won  nearly  eight 
hundred  pounds,  and  round  his  chair  were  grouped 
a  crowd  of  people  three  feet  deep. 

People  were  flocking  from  other  tables,  drawn 
by  that  nameless  unknown  mental  telegraphy 
which  tells  the  whole  Casino  when  big  wins  are 
being  made. 

The  whole  of  the  great  rooms  became  electric 
with  an  atmosphere  of  excitement.  There  was 
not  a  sound  as  the  people  thronged  to  Basil's  table 
— at  Monte  Carlo  the  greatest  successes,  the  most 
disastrous   failures,  happen  in  silence. 

But,  in  that  tense  atmosphere,  there  was  more 
than  sound — there  was  a  pressing  together  and 
focussing  of  human  minds,  converging  upon  one 
spot  to  witness  the  battle. 

"Failes  vos  jeux^  messieurs" 


i64  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

"Le  jeu  est  fait.'" 

"Rien  ne  va  plus.'' 

A  rattle,  a  hushed  silence — the  player  who  had 
put  a  maximum  of  nine  louis  upon  number  13  had 
lost! 

Men  and  women  nodded  and  whispered,  whis- 
pered and  nodded.  "Monsieur's  luck  was  about 
to  change,  n'est-ce  'pas?"  "It  is  not  going  to  be  a 
big  run  after  all,  hein?" 

Once  more  the  wheel  spun. 

Monsieur,  with  extraordinary  daring,  placed 
the  maximum  upon  6. 

Six  turned  up. 

In  front  of  Basil  Gregory  was  a  pile  of  gold, 
still  more  important  and  significant  a  bundle  of 
crinkled  blue  and  white  notes. 

He  took  the  notes  up  with  cool  deliberation, 
folded  many  of  them,  and  put  them  into  the  breast 
pocket  of  his  coat,  stretched  out  his  hand,  and 
put  the  maximum  upon  black. 

"Noir,  dix-neuf,"  the  croupier  croaked,  and 
another  two  hundred  and  forty  pounds  was  pushed 
over  by  the  rakes  to  add  to  Basil's  store. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  165 

By  this  time  almost  everyone  at  the  table  was 
playing  as  Basil  played. 

If  he  staked  upon  an  8,  the  number  was 
plastered  and  covered  with  gold  and  notes. 

Each  time  he  won  and  by  now  a  rumour  of 
something  utterly  unique  had  spread  through  the 
whole  vast  building,  other  and  lesser  punters  won 
with  him.  When  he  was  up  three  thousand 
pounds  against  the  Bank,  the  Bank  had  lost  quite 
seventeen  thousand. 

The  air  was  electric.  The  word  had  gone 
round.  Habitues  of  the  Casino  crowded  to  watch 
one  of  those  extraordinary  nights  of  play  which 
occur  now  and  then — far  more  rarely  than  is  sup- 
posed— and  which  are  talked  about  for  long  after- 
wards. New-comers  joined  the  throng,  and  still 
Basil  Gregory  sat  impassive  in  his  place,  conscious 
that  he  was  the  centre  of  attention,  but  allowing 
nothing  whatever  to  divert  him  from  his  purpose. 

He  glanced  at  his  watch. 

Stakes  were  being  put  upon  the  table  timidly. 
The  players  were  waiting  to  see  what  he  was  go- 
ing to  do. 


i66  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

He  glanced  at  his  cypher-card.  The  moment 
was  marked  with  a  tiny  cross.  He  was  now  to 
adventure  a  bigger  coup  than  ever  before. 

He  placed  the  maximum  of  nine  louis  upon 
number  20 — standing  to  win  six  thousand  francs. 
He  placed  the  maximum  of  sixty  louis  upon  the 
line  that  covered  the  six  figures  from  16  to  21, 
including  20.  Here  also  he  stood  to  win  6,000 
francs  if  20  turned  up. 

Then  he  staked  on  black.  Number  20  upon  the 
roulette  wheel  is  a  black  number,  so  here,  again,  he 
played  the  maximum  and  stood  to  win  the  highest 
possible.  Finally  he  backed  the  middle  dozen  of 
the  36  numbers,  here  also  staking  the  maximum  of 
150  louis,  again  making  it  possible  to  win  6,000 
francs. 

In  that  quiet  place,  where  any  outward  expres- 
sion of  excitement  or  emotion  is  instantly  sup- 
pressed, there  came  a  low,  sighing  sound  like  the 
fluttering  of  leaves  in  the  wind. 

It  was  the  spectators  whispering  to  each  other. 

Such  high  play  as  this  was  beyond  the  experi- 
ence of  almost  everyone.  This  time,  getting  more 
cautious,  the  other  players  wagered  heavily  against 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  167 

Basil.  They  thought  such  phenomenal  luck  as  he 
had  had  could  not  possibly  continue,  and  for  the 
first  time  during  the  evening  a  slight  sardonic  smile 
came  upon  the  young  man's  face. 

He  knew,  they  did  not,  with  what  certainty 
number  20  would  turn  up. 

The  wheel  swung,  the  ball  spun.  ''Noir  et 
vingt^'  croaked  the  croupier. 

And  now,  as  the  rakes  pursued  their  remoreless 
way,  and  swept  in  all  the  stakes  upon  the  table 
except  Basil's  maximums,  there  was  a  low  murmur 
of  surprise  and  consternation.  Anywhere  else  but 
in  the  Casino  it  would  have  been  a  babel  of 
tongues. 

In  one  single  minute  Basil  Gregory  had  won 
the  huge  sum  of  24,000  francs — 960  English 
pounds. 

Standing  by  the  director  of  the  table,  who  sat 
above  and  behind  the  croupier  who  spun  the  wheel, 
there  was  now  seen  a  tall  and  unobtrusive  man 
with  a  pale  face,  a  short  black  beard,  and  wearing 
evening  dress.  It  was  one  of  the  heads  of  the 
permanent  staff  of  the  Administration — a  mysteri- 
ous being  who  only  entered  the  rooms  upon  special 


i68  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

occasion,  a  person  invested  with  unknown  powers 
— one  of  the  gods  I 

Basil  had  emptied  his  mind  of  thought. 

He  had  focussed  his  whole  being  upon  what  he 
was  doing.  The  huge  pile  of  wealth  before  him 
affected  him  no  more  than  if  the  notes  and  gold — 
and  by  now  there  were  many  notes  and  but  little 
gold — were  but  so  many  counters.  Mechanically 
he  folded  bundle  after  bundle  of  thousand  franc 
notes  and  placed  them  in  the  inner  pocket  of  his 
coat. 

And  then,  in  the  stir  and  rustle,  he  heard  a  sharp 
exclamation — unremarked  by  the  crowd  around  in 
that  moment  of  tension,  but  like  an  arrow  through 
his  own  consciousness. 

He  looked  up. 

Opposite  him,  down  towards  the  end  of  the 
table,  two  ladies  were  sitting.  He  had  been 
vaguely  conscious  of  them  before,  but,  during  all 
his  play,  he  had  made  a  point  of  not  allowing  his 
thoughts  or  glances  to  be  distracted  by  the  other 
players. 

It  was  from  one  of  those  ladies,  the  young  one, 
that  he,  and  he  alone,  heard  a  little  gasping  cry. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  169 

It  was  the  girl  he  loved  I  It  was  Ethel  Mc- 
Mahon ! 

A  mist  seemed  to  rise  up  from  the  table  as  if 
water  had  been  poured  upon  a  heated  plate  of 
steel.  For  a  moment  it  swayed  and  blotted  out 
everything.  His  mind  seemed  to  be  a  turning 
wheel.  He  felt  little  needles  pricking  at  the  back 
of  his  eyes,  his  blood  congealed  into  a  jelly,  and 
the  palms  of  his  hands  suddenly  became  covered 
with  a  film  of  perspiration. 

Ethel  I  ...  It  was  Ethel!  And  as  the  mist 
cleared  away  and  his  mind  came  to  attention,  he 
knew  that  this  was  no  illusion,  but  that  in  very 
flesh  and  blood  Ethel  and  her  mother  were  sitting 
almost  opposite  to  him  playing  at  this  table,  play- 
ing roulette  in  the  world's  greatest  gambling  hell ! 

The  impulse  to  call  out  was  almost  unbearable, 
but  he  restrained  it  with  an  iron  effort. 

He  stared  hungrily  at  the  two  women,  and  as  he 
did  so  he  saw  Ethel  and  Mrs.  McMahon  look  up 
and  meet  his  gaze.  He  saw  this  also — in  their 
eyes  was  envy  and  consternation,  but  not  the 
slightest  glint  of  recognition. 

^\nd    then   he    remembered    his    disguise — the 


170  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

spectacles,  the  shaved  moustache,  the  foreign 
clothes,  and  swarthy  complexion — and  he  realised 
that  their  interest  in  him  was  no  more  than  that  of 
any  of  the  others. 

The  whole  crowd,  the  croupiers  also,  were  wait- 
ing to  see  what  he  would  do. 

The  "faites  vos  jeux"  was  rapping  out  at  him 
from  all  sides  of  the  table. 

He  knew  that  he  must  have  an  instant  to  think 
or  else  go  mad.  With  careless  gesture  he  threw 
a  couple  of  louis  upon  the  table  before  him,  not 
caring  where  they  fell,  and  once  again  the  wheel  of 
chance  revolved. 

What  did  this  mean?  There  was  no  answer 
to  his  agonised  mental  inquiry. 

He  saw  Ethel  and  her  mother  bending  over  a 
card  covered  with  figures — one  of  those  system 
cards  so  frequently  seen  at  the  tables,  so  certain 
to  end  in  disaster. 

He  saw  also  the  pallor  of  their  faces.  He 
realised  in  a  flash  of  intuition  that  they  were  los- 
ing heavily. 

How  to  warn  them,  how  to  tell  them  that  he 
and  he  only  possessed  the  secret  key  to  Fortune 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  171 

tonight  he  could  not  think,  he  could  not  divine. 

Again  he  glanced  at  his  card.  Habit  had  be- 
come mechanical.  His  watch  pointed  to  ten 
minutes  past  the  hour.  His  directions  stood  clear 
and  plain  in  the  cypher  before  him. 

He  sorted  out  his  notes  and  did  what  was  di- 
rected. 

Up  there,  on  the  top  of  the  Hotel  Malmaison, 
Emile  Deschamps  was  even  at  that  moment  press- 
ing a  certain  key.  The  result  was  as  inevitable 
as  sure  as  Fate. 

And  as  Fate  or,  rather,  the  cunning  of  science, 
the  immense  trickery  of  the  two  young  geniuses, 
spoke,  Basil  saw  that  Ethel  McMahon  and  her 
mother  were  very  hard  hit. 

He  watched  them  slant-wise  from  the  ends  of 
his  spectacles,  realising,  more  definitely  than  ever, 
that  they  were  playing  upon  some  fallacious 
scheme,  and  being  sure — with  a  jerk  of  memory 
— that  old  Mrs.  McMahon  had  unearthed  one  of 
her  late  husband's  systems,  and  was  pursuing  it 
to  her  own  ruin. 

Again  he  won,  and  by  now  he  was  a  rich  man. 
The  excitement  was  tremendous,  when  suddenly 


172  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

the  tall  man  in  evening  dress  announced  a  sus- 
pension of  play. 

Basil  Gregory  had  "broken  the  bank." 

There  is  a  prevalent  idea,  among  those  who  do 
not  know  much  about  Monte  Carlo,  that  breaking 
the  bank  means  that  the  whole  play  of  the  Casino 
is  stopped  for  the  night  on  which  it  occurs. 

This  is  quite  wrong. 

"Breaking  the  bank"  simply  means  that  the  re- 
sources of  a  particular  table,  out  of  the  dozen  or 
so  tables  on  which  roulette  is  played,  are  ex- 
hausted for  a  moment.  In  five  minutes  new 
money  is  brought  and  play  goes  on. 

It  was  so  now.  There  was  a  hurried  consulta- 
tion, and  in  no  time  lackeys  were  bearing  oak  cof- 
fers bound  with  brass,  filled  with  money,  to  Basil's 
table,  accompanied  by  three  or  four  frock-coated 
officials. 

The  money  was  spread  out  in  rows  before  the 
principal  paying  croupier,  and  six  minutes  had 
hardly  passed  when  once  more  the  calm,  passion- 
less voice  of  the  director  was  calling  upon  the 
players  to  "make  their  game," 

But  in  the  interim,  as  Basil  Gregory  leant  back 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  173 

in  his  chair,  he  had  heard,  with  ears  quickened  by- 
anxiety  and  love,  these  words  from  Ethel  to  her 
mother — words  spoken  in  English: 

"But,  mother,  we  cannot  go  on." 

Then  the  answer,  in  a  sort  of  wail  of  despair: 
"We  must  go  on,  Ethel.  This  next  coup  is  cer- 
tain to  put  us  right.  We  must  pay  no  attention 
to  the  extraordinary  luck  of  that  )^oung  Russian 
nobleman  opposite.  We  must  adhere  to  your 
father's  system.  If  this  coup  goes  wrong,  then 
we  can  onl)^  play  twice  again,  and  all  our  money 
will  be  exhausted.  But  I  have  every  faith  in  your 
father's  system." 

Then  Basil  heard  something  about  "courage," 
and,  finally,  a  whispered  lamentation  that  "our 
capital  is  so  small." 

Three  numbers  upon  his  cypher-card  had  passed 
by  during  the  rebringing  of  money  to  the  table. 

Glancing  at  his  watch,  he  saw  that  the  time  was 
ripe  for  him  to  play  upon  16. 

He  was  gathering  up  the  necessary  money  to 
put  upon  the  board,  when  the  sallow  man  from 
the  Administration  pushed  through  the  people  sur- 
rounding him  and  whispered  in  his  ear. 


174  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

If  he  liked,  the  official  did  not  press  it  at  all, 
monsieur  should  have  the  opportunity  of  playing 
three  coups  against  the  bank.  That  is  to  say,  that 
the  ordinary  maximum  should  be  entirely  abro- 
gated in  favour  of  monsieur,  and  any  sum  he  cared 
to  wager  upon  an  even  chance,  the  Administration 
would  be  pleased  to  meet. 

The  colloquy  was  very  rapid.  Deschamps  had 
told  Basil  that  such  a  thing  might  happen — such 
an  offer  be  made  to  him.  When  a  player  has  tem- 
porarily suspended  the  game  at  a  certain  table — 
or,  in  common  parlance,  "broken  the  bank" — the 
authorities  are  nearly  always  ready  for  a  final  sen- 
sational coup. 

Basil  nodded.  "Certainly,"  he  said,  pulling 
out  bundle  after  bundle  of  notes.  "I  will  play 
200,000  francs  on  red." 

The  number  16  is  a  red  number.  Basil  wagered 
almost  his  whole  winnings  of  that  night  without  a 
tremor. 

There  was  now  a  dead  silence  round  the  table. 
People  clustered  about  it  ten  deep  in  the  vain 
effort  to  see  what  was  going  on.  Yet,  while  the 
wheel  was  turned  and  the  ball  spun,  the  only  un- 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  175 

concerned  person  about  this  gigantic  stake  was 
Basil  Gregory  himself. 

No  one  else  put  a  single  coin  upon  the  table, 
save  only  a  trembling  old  lady  who  sat  by  a  young 
and  lovely  girl — an  obstinate  old  lady,  clinging 
to  a  hope. 

Basil  was  given  notes  to  the  value  of  £16,000. 

The  most  notable  thing  about  the  Casino,  with 
its  enormous  resources,  is  the  absolute  impassibility 
of  its  officials. 

Again  Basil  wagered  £8,000 — this  time  upon 
black. 

He  won,  and  as  his  money  was  being  paid  to 
him  a  loud  murmur  rose  from  the  crowd — a  loud 
murmur,  broken  by  a  sharp  and  pulsing  cry. 

A  tall  and  beautiful  girl  had  risen  from  her 
feet  and  had  fallen  in  a  deep  swoon  into  the  arms 
of  the  bystanders  behind  her. 

There  was  an  immediate  struggle.  The  electric 
tension  of  the  moment  was  over.  The  well- 
dressed  crowd  surged  and  almost  fought  in  a  panic 
of  snapped  nerves  and  suddenly  relaxed  excite- 
ment. 

People  came  surging  from  all  sides.     The  other 


176  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

tables  were  deserted,  and,  far  away  through  the 
great  halls,  those  who  were  playing  trente-et-quar- 
ante  rose  from  their  cards  with  listening  ears. 

In  that  supreme  moment  Basil  Gregory  did  not 
lose  his  head.  He  gathered  up  his  enormous  win- 
nings. The  pockets  of  his  coat  bulged  with 
wealth.  And  Ethel  McMahon  was  being  carried 
out  into  the  Atrium,  followed  by  her  mother  in  a 
state  of  wild  hysteria,  before  he  rose  from  his 
seat. 

He  took  six-thousand-franc  notes  from  one  of 
his  pockets.  To  each  of  the  six  croupiers  he  gave 
a  note. 

Then  he  sauntered  quietly  out  into  the  huge 
hall. 

Under  the  brilliant  electric  lights  which  gleamed 
upon  the  marble  he  saw  little  groups  of  people — 
each  group  seeming  quite  small  in  the  immensity 
— talking  earnestly  together. 

As  he  came  out  among  them  every  head  was 
turned,  though  of  Ethel  and  her  mother  he  saw 
not  a  trace. 

But  as  he  went  to  the  cloak-room,  and  deliv- 
ered his  metal  ticket,  two  or  three  commissionaires 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  177 

came  up  to  him  with  awed  and  respectful  faces. 

"That  young  lady?*  he  said,  "and  the  elder 
one  with  her?" 

"It  was  nothing,  monsieur,"  one  of  the  men 
hastened  to  say.  "They  are  two  English  ladies 
staying  at  the  pension  in  the  Rue  Grimaldi.  Your 
success,  monsieur,  unnerved  them.  They  have 
been  sent  home  in  a  voiture^ 

Basil  nodded  as  he  was  helped  into  his  long, 
dark  coat. 

With  a  smile  he  distributed  a  few  gold  coins, 
and  then,  alone,  unattended,  he  walked  out  into 
the  warm,  aromatic  night,  and  strolled  to  his  ad- 
jacent hotel  among  flower-bordered  paths,  under 
the  twin  lights  of  electricity  and  the  great,  red 
moon  of  the  South. 

At  the  Hotel  de  Paris,  at  the  Metropole,  at 
Ciro's,  people  were  gathering  for  gay  supper 
parties. 

As  he  entered  the  huge,  brilliantly  decorated 
lounge  of  the  Malmaison,  groups  of  wealthy  peo- 
ple were  smoking  a  preliminary  cigarette  before 
supper.  Some  of  them — ^many  of  them — recog- 
nised him,  and  nodded  and  whispered  to  each 


178  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

other,  but  he  entered  the  lift  and  went  straight 
to  his  own  room. 

He  turned  up  the  electric  lights,  and  locked  the 
door.  And  then,  from  pocket  and  pocket,  he 
poured  out  crackling,  crumpled  heaps  of  notes, 
heavy  handfuls  of  gold — the  wealth  of  which  he 
had  dreamed. 

After  a  minute  or  two,  without  even  locking  the 
door  of  his  sitting-room,  he  stumbled  out  of  it  and 
up  the  stairs  to  the  servants'  quarters. 

He  gave  the  signal  knocks. 

He  was  at  once  admitted  to  the  dingy  little 
bedroom-workshop. 

Emile  Deschamps  was  there.  The  French- 
man's face  was  as  grey  as  evening  ice. 

He  was  staring  at  his  apparatus  in  a  sort  of 
stupor,  and  by  his  side  the  chronometer  ticked. 

Emile  gave  a  loud  shout  as  Basil  tumbled  into 
the  place. 

"It  is  done,  then^"  he  gasped.  "Mon  ami, 
it  is  a  thing  done^" 

All  grimy  as  he  was  Basil  led  his  friend  down 
into  his  sitting-room. 


CHANCE  IN  CHAINS  179 

At  two  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day 
two  English  ladies,  accompanied  by  a  little, 
swarthy  Frenchman,  with  a  dressing-case  which 
never  left  his  hands,  rolled  out  of  the  station  of 
Monte  Carlo,  en  route  for  Paris. 

For  two  days  after  this  Monsieur  Montoyer 
was  observed  to  walk  distractedly  through  the 
salons  and  occasionally  to  place  a  maximum  upon 
a  single  number.  Monsieur  Montoyer  did  not  re- 
peat his  successes,  and  those  who  followed  his  play 
cursed  him  and  their  ov/n  credulity  deeply  and 
silently. 

The  great  night  when  Fortune  smiled  upon  the 
"young  Russian  nobleman"  is  still  remembered  by 
the  assiduous  acolytes  of  Chance.  It  is  talked 
about,  and  given  as  an  instance  to  new-comers  of 
what  bold,  indifferent  play  can  accomplish. 

Nobody  connects  Sir  Basil  Gregory,  Bart.,  the 
head  of  the  great  firm  of  Deschamps,  Gregor)'  and 
Co.,  which  has  revolutionised  wireless  telegraphy, 
with  the  spectacled,  clean-shaven  young  gentle- 
man who  made  such  a  sensation  one  night  in  the 
Casino  at  Monte  Carlo. 

Sir  Basil  and  Lady  Gregory  spend  almost  all 


i8o  CHANCE  IN  CHAINS 

their  days  in  the  charming  old  house  they  have 
bought  near  Falmouth. 

But  on  the  Riviera  there  is  an  old,  old  lady — 
the  well-known  Madame  McMahon — who  still 
haunts  the  gambling  hells  of  the  Continent.  She 
is  a  recognised  figure.  She  has  a  marvellous  sys- 
tem which  never  comes  off,  but  when  she  gets  into 
difficulties  with  the  proprietors  of  her  pension^ 
mysterious  telegraphic  drafts  upon  the  local  bank 
always  arrive  in  the  nick  of  time,  either  from 
Cornwall  or  from  Quimperle,  in  Brittany,  where 
Monsieur  Edouard  and  Monsieur  Charles  Carnet 
have  a  house,  and  are  churchwardens  of  the  unique 
cathedral. 


THE    END 


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